Hello-
I have been prescribed 25MG of Spironlactone (taken twice a day) and Minocycline (taken twice a day) with a probiotic. I am a few weeks short of reaching my 3 month mark since being on both medications. I was told that it may take about 3 months before you start clearing up. I was also told that it may get worse before it gets better.
I have been extremely discouraged and constantly want to give up on the medications all together. Do you think I need to have my dosage upped to 100MG/day instead of 50? My acne has by far been the worst it's ever been in the last few months. I even switched up my diet and have been drinking more water in hopes that it will help flush out the bacteria. I have a Oct 9th check up with my derm and hope to get more information but I am really impatient and just want to see my skin clear up. Please provide any information that you can- thanks!
I don't think you should give up on the medications! You heard right, it usually does take at least 3 months for something to start working & it will usually get worse before it gets better. Since you are just a little over 2 months in, what you are experiencing is normal for a hormonal treatment. I know that it can feel super discouraging and the days seem to be twice as long when your waiting for the time to pass, but hang in there!
So it looks like you have a little less than 2 weeks until your derm check-up? See how things go over the next 2 weeks. If you aren't experiencing any side effects from the meds you can certainly talk to your doc about upping your spiro dose. Sometimes that is just what people need to turn their skin around.
As the above post mentioned, you can discuss birth control with your doc too if you are interested. I've heard that Spiro works really well for some people when combined with the pill. However, I would personally advise that you wait on doing that. Your body hasn't fully adjusted to the Spiro or Mino yet so throwing in the BC too soon could just cause more issues.
I probably used every antibiotic that was available for acne. The next step was roaccutane but the side effects were a little worrying. I'd been to see about 7 different docs/specialists and finally one of them suggested the contraceptive pill.
I had 18 cysts on my chin/cheeks altogether and within two weeks was down to 5! 3 months in I only have one cyst left. I'm on yasmin but I'm sure there are other contraceptive pills that would give the same result as your acne is hormonal