Hello all,

I'm new to this site and thought I would give you a little background. I'm 26, turning 27 this month and have been suffering from acne for almost a year. It's taken a huge emotional toll on my life and I am missing school and social functions because of it.

I have been creeping the boards for awhile and finally decided to join in hopes of getting some more personal advice from the acne.org members.

I don't have a family doctor and have been pretty much dealing with this on my own. From about 14/15 until I was 23 I was on birth control and never suffered much more than a pimple once or twice a month. At 23 I decided I didn't want to be on them and when I went off I worried about getting acne, but it never happened. Flash forward to summer 2014, I started getting extremely oily skin and went on a vacation, once I came home I broke out in hundreds of little closed comodones and from there on it got worse.

In October 2014, I went to a clinic and asked for birth control as I started to get lots of pus filled pimples that were scarring my skin. I went on Yasmin and I got even worse breakouts, missed work because of them.

In November I went on a trip to Australia and in December when I came back I had the worst breakouts of my life, so I went back to the clinic and got Minocycline based on a friends reccommendation. I never felt like it worked that well but helped a little

In February, I stared proactiv and was really impressed, it cleared all my closed comidones on my forehead and even on my cheeks, my pimples were reduced a bit, but I was still not that impressed

This April it progressively started getting worse again and I decided I gave proactive about 11 weeks and from 10 weeks on it was getting worse so I gave up on it.

I started Finacea 2 weeks ago tomorrow and have been breaking out on one cheek primarily for the whole time. I have had maybe one clear day, but before I started this cheek had been broken out consistently for about a month. I'm just wondering if anyone else has tried it?

I am still on minicycline but have lowered my dose the past 2 weeks cause I don't think is doing anything anymore. I'm on month 9 of Yasmin and it hasn't helpd with anything but cysts (I only ever had 2 before Yasmin though)

I would rate my acne is mild but moderate at times, I break out once a week in about 5 pimples. I have a ton of markings and thought maybe the finacea would help.

I know its too early to tell but I'm extremely depressed and today I'm missing work because of a breakout. I feel like I'm ruining my relationship with my husband and I just want someone to help make it go away.

I'm going back to the clinic tomorrow to ask about meds.. Was thinking of asking about spiro... Do you have to get that from a dermo or will a clinic give it to me? Ps I'm in BC, Canada.

Thanks for all your help

Rebecca