After searching the Internet for weeks and looking at every webpage available I'm still finding myself having unanswered questions and can't seem to find any solutions to my issues
My case isnt 'typical' . Im a 21 year old female and have suffered with acne since I can remember. I also suffer with anxiety which makes matters SO much worse. I wouldn't class my skin as severe acne but to be honest I don't know how to explain it at all. My face is such a mess. Around, mainly, my lower forehead; between my brows and top of the nose and my lower cheeks I haven the biggest either open pores or scars from spots it's horrendous, all clustered together! Basically all over my face. I also suffer with black heads a hell of a lot but in areas such as my nose, forehead but worst on my cheeks. In combination to the black heads my faces is covered in small but firm pimples that seem deep under the skins and never comes to a head and can barely pop them. My face tends to be very red but not so much sore and rarely have white heads. After years of trying so so many products and researching treatents, product reviews, causes, dos and donts I'm getting nowhere.
* My my diet isn't the best but I do eat well, rarely have take away or fast food
* I never drink alcohol
* My face isn't even slighlty oily, it's fairly dry and quite 'stiff'
* I'm not currently and havent been for 2 years on any contraception. I last had the copper coil implant and had the most traumatic experience
* In the last 2 years I've tried every possible skin care brand / products in addition to several prescribed cream or topical treatment And nothing has worked
* I predominantly use Eucerin products now just a cleansing face wash and hydrating moisturiser in a morning and at night the cleansing face wash, Eucerin night moisturiser and Decleor cleanser and toner, I often use Sudocreme at night but it's a fairly new thing so i cant really say if it help yet.
I haven't found any similar cases at all so I'm struggling finding a starting point even now! I'd be so grateful for any information anyone can give me!
I'm sure you've tried a lot to fix your skin, but I HIGHLY doubt you've tried everything. There is a metric crap load of anti acne products out there, there's no way you can claim to have tried them all. Be persistent, there has to be something out there that works for you. It might seem hard, but know that giving up is not an option. Just keep looking.
Heya
The first thing that comes to mind to ask is if you have tried any prescription retinoids? Because you allude that a lot of it tends to be under the surface, which is like my acne tbh, never have any whitehead either, it sounds like you need to use something to push them out rather than dry them up and treat them at the surface. I'm using differin right now, and things look promising.
If you have used a retinoid and stuck with it and got no results, have you considered accutane?
Like lahmeeobop said, you probably haven't tried every thing, so i'll cut to the chase if you truly have and say that it might be a good option as it seems like you are mentally tired of it and while I am not a great fan of accutane myself I always thinkmental health comes before physical health when acne starts effecting your life to a significant extent.
Thank You AppleySauce!
no your right that's a bit of an exaggeration! But I have tried a hell of a lot and changed different things. My main issue was that I seemed like I couldn't really find the help on my specific issues! I'm booked in at the doctors (they're unbelievably useless and insufficient) so I basically have to more or less ask for certain treatments so I'll give the 2 mentioned above a go! Thank you.
did you also find that your skin care regime / different products help? If so which?
10 hours ago, Robynnx said:Thank You AppleySauce!
no your right that's a bit of an exaggeration! But I have tried a hell of a lot and changed different things. My main issue was that I seemed like I couldn't really find the help on my specific issues! I'm booked in at the doctors (they're unbelievably useless and insufficient) so I basically have to more or less ask for certain treatments so I'll give the 2 mentioned above a go! Thank you.
did you also find that your skin care regime / different products help? If so which?
hmm that's frustrating for you... I can't tell you what to ask your doctor for because at the end of the day i'm just some stranger on the internet. But if you haven't tried prescription retinoid as i mentioned but you've tried lots of different over the counter washes and other prescribed topicald etc, that might be a good start. I think you should do a bit of research yourself before you ask/use them though, retinoids are not a quick fix. A lot of doctors prescribe a short course of anti biotics to help with the initial month of treatment, so you could mention that to your doc. Of course if you have already used antibiotics for your acne with minimal results, there is very little advantage to using anti biotics with a retinoid as they can be harmful to digestive flora. Derms/docs usually prescribe retinoids/antibiotics as one of the first treatments anyway. Next comes specific birthcontrol for females and then if nothing works then accutane is a last resort. They usually try an antibiotic cream or benzoyl peroxide cream first but i'm assuming you've tried that as you have already had other creams prescribed.
Sorry to spill information at you, I just don't want to allude that something will work for you when it might not!
And yeah; I think my acne sounds quite similar to yours. Right now i am using Differin gel (a retinoid) as my main acne medication with just cetaphil cleanser and moisturiser. I use BP to spot treat. It's been almost 8 weeks on this regime and after the inital break out my skin has improved maybe 50% from before starting. It takes 12 weeks to see results usually. 🙂