Guys please give me some advice because I'm at loss now.
From September '14 to December '14 my dermatologist prescribed me:
- Epiduo
- Minocycline
- Sodium Sulfacetamide
First 2 weeks were horrible, but after that my skin was almost perfect, rarely any new breakouts. My back still had light to moderate acne though. However, they took me off minocycline because of it's dangers over long term use.
My new regimen for the past 5 weeks has been:
- Differin
- Acanya Gel
- Minocycline (after 3 weeks in)
- Sodium Sulfacetamide
Since using these products, my face is moderate to severe on the acne scale. Three weeks in I asked to be put on minocycline again because I couldn't handle it anymore and for the first week I was beginning to clear up, but now my skin is once again at its worst. However, for some reason my back is completely clear and smooth now, like I've always had the worst cystic acne on my back and now it looks like it was never there.
Can someone please explain what is happening? I thought by now my skin would be used to the retinoids, but apparently not? Or perhaps is it the acanya gel that's screwing me over? Because if you really look at it, it is the only thing that's different from my previous regimen since differin and epiduo are very similar.
I went back on Retinoids August of last year after staying clear for a year and a half post Accutane. I started accumulating many closed comedones and they were slowly and systematically starting to come to the surface.
When I started Adapalene .001% (generic Differin) in August 2014, my skin went nuts. I detail some of this experience in my previous posts. I would say I experienced 3 pretty bad initial flare ups from Aug 2014 until about December 2014. About December my flare ups completely stopped, but I had a fair amount of closed comedones.
I really wanted to give up and I won't tell you that it was easy. The flare ups are ugly and difficult to deal with.
It wasn't until January of this year that my skin showed dramatic improvement. I'm not getting break outs and the closed comedones have decreased significantly. At this very point in my treatment I can say that I am very pleased with results, but again, it hasn't been any easy journey. There were countless times between August and now that I wanted to quit, go back on Accutane or just set my face on fire entirely. It's also very difficult not to pick at your flare ups which puts you at risk for scars.
So there's my personal journey. It was slow (about 6 months) before I saw any noticeable improvement. I still have some closed comedones, but no where near like before and they are way easier to treat and extract now. My skin in general is just so much more responsive to the medication as opposed to negatively reacting to it.