So back in November of 2012 I developed very oily skin and somewhat severe acne (18 year old male at the time), although I had acne before but not as bad. I was prescribed a topical tretinoin cream from my dermatologist which I started using every other night and then began to use it every night as I was told. I washed my face twice a day and moisturized in the mornings with Cetaphil. It helped but I still got acne regularly, it just wasn't nearly as bad. I noticed that the tretinoin was causing redness but whenever I tried to go back to using it every other night I was breaking out more, so I kept using it nightly. By around May I noticed I would start blushing whenever I was active (like at work). My cheeks would get really hot and become very red, not just normal pink blushing. When I woke up in the mornings, my face looked fine, but as the day went on my cheeks would turn red. Even if I would laugh or smile, my face would become red. Also, if i started to get hot it would trigger the blushing immediately and it would take at least 30 minutes of sitting for my cheeks to calm down. I continued to use it since I had no other alternative, also I want to add that I was using it correctly, and even started to use less each night.

By December of 2013, I decided I had to do something because it was becoming a problem. In social interactions I felt self conscious of the redness, and that would make me turn even redder, it was a snowball effect. One day on amazon I saw these vitamin B5 pills and gave them a shot paired with L-cysteine which I read about on these forums, and I decided to give it a shot because I wanted to cut out topical treatment tretinoin. I stopped the tretinoin cream cold turkey and haven't used it since. My acne is pretty much gone, just red marks here and there. The redness has definately become less severe, but I still flare up when I'm active or if I get hot, and sometimes in social settings too. Social interactions aren't causing the blushing, but it gets worse in these situations if my cheeks are already red because I become self conscious of it, if that makes sense.

Basically, I'm just wondering if anyone else has had the same experience with tretinoin. I was almost certain that the blushing was caused from the tretinoin cream, but it's been almost a month off of it and I'm still blushing (although it is less red now). Will it take a few more months for my cheeks to completely return to normal, or would the side effects from tretinoin be gone by now? I might start trying a different face wash/moisturizer, but I want to know if the tretinoin is what caused the blushing. and its just going to take a few months to heal.

Any input would be greatly appreciated, thanks.