Hello everyone!
My name is Luke and I am 26 years old. I've been struggling with mild/severe acne since I was about 14 years old. My teenage years were horrible, no social life at all and I just felt terrible all the time. I tried several topical creams and antibiotics but neither of that helped at all. When I was 22 I reached the point that I had acne all over my face, chest and back and thenI decided that I had enough of this and did what I should have done years ago - went to see a dermatologist and got on roaccutane course.I was taking that stuff for about 5 months and after my roaccutane course my skin looked better than ever and I was finally happy again. Unfortunately my good skin didn't last very long and acne started coming back short after I finished my first course. I hoped that it would get better but when it was only getting worse every day I decided to do another course of roaccutane (I was 24 at the time). I was taking 65mg (I'm really skinny)for 6 months and again after I finished my course my skin was flawless. Couple months after I finished my second roaccutane course I started getting acne again but it wasn't too bad just the occasional pimple every now and then so I didn't worry too much about it, however it got worse after some time and now I am here today at the age of 26 and again I have bad and painful acne on my face, chest and back. I tried eating dairy free, gluten free and soy free for over a month now but I doesn't seem to do anything as I am still getting acne. I don't know what else to try. Any ideas? I will appreciate any help, thanks.
Luke.
TL;DR: had acne for many years, tried 2xroaccutane -didnt have long time effect, tried topical creams - no effect at all, gluten free, dairy free, soy free diet - very little effect.
What helps me the most is taking omega 3 with every meal, and lots of it. 4-6 caps of sundown naturals omega 3, with every meal.
Topicals I find are the best are cerave wash, Stridex in the red box (this will break you out at first, it's bringingall the yuck to the surface. Don't give up too quickly. It took almost a month but was worth it), and cerave moisturizer when the liquid from the Stridex pad has dried.
Good luck!
I'm glad you've come here to seek out help and were so open with your story. I'm a bit similar in that I was prescribed birth control for acne and even though my skin cleared it gave me some nasty mood swings and depression, but the effect was so gradual it was hard to notice. Anyway, I decided to go off it and *big suprise* my acne was ready to come right back in full force. Woo!
I have a similar idea to @Mama11 with the allergy test, but it's a bit more involved. What helped the most when getting completely clear was pinpointing what foods caused gut imbalances for me. It took some work for the first couple months as I needed to follow a pretty strict diet and slowly add foods back to find the "acne culprits." But that time investment has payed off considerably as I know there's only a few things I need to avoid/minimize in my diet. I even stopped all supplements and other measures just to experiment and see how lazy I could get without getting acne 
So if you're interested I recommend you check out and research the Low-Fodmap diet, as this is what I've followed, among smaller adjustments which would make this post quite long. But diet is usually the main thing. It's a weird name and I wish they would change it to something "sexier," but what can you do. Anyway a Low-Fodmap diet is common for IBS sufferers to follow, but relatively unheard of in the acne community. I'm trying to change that, because while I didn't and most acne sufferers don't necessarily have IBS, they usually have an unbalanced gut but haven't really paid attention to it as they're obsessing over their skin. It also kinda explains why avoiding gluten-based grains and dairy products can also balance out or minimize breakouts.
I remember reading that isotretinoin/accutane can cause intestinal damage. So it may be worth it to try probiotics as well to help your gut heal. Hope this helps!