The best thing I ever did. All the OTC products weren't working, but this took care of the problem quickly and efficiently. I find myself looking people in the eye and smiling instead of trying to hide part of my face.

Background info- I've had mild acne ever since I was 13 (now 18), for that period I'd used multiple topical creams, the only one that worked was a 5% benzac cleanser & spot cream. I've never really been fussed about my acne until the end of last year. My acne turned moderate where my face was covered in paptules, pustules with the occasional nodule. So I decided medication was the next step, the pimples were stress induced and weren't hormonal so I knew the pill was less likely to clear my skin. I was prescribed doxycycline for 6 months. I was apprehensive at first as a few friends had tried doxy with no result, to be fair, their acne was severe and cystic. KEEP IN MIND you won't see results until the 2 month mark at the earliest! At 2 months I'd noticed my skin changing, however, my skin wasn't completely clear until the 4 month mark. Your prescription needs to be for a substantial amount of time! 2 months worth isn't enough. In saying that, you will know around the 3 month mark if doxy has or hasn't worked for you! My friends who weren't so successful with doxy were then prescribed roaccutane and currently have the clearest skin I've ever seen! So I'd stopped taking doxy and my skin remained clear for approximately 6 months until now. It's exam period and the stress is in full force and so my acne has returned. No where near as severe as before hand but I didn't want to risk it progressing to that stage. So I'm back on the prescription have been for a month and I've already seen a massive improvement! So all the reviews 'not recommending it' had a similar experience as my friends, it shows you that the effectivity varies per person. You won't know if it will effect you until you try it! Be optimistic. For those with moderate acne I'd suggest Doxy as an initial step and roaccutane as a back up plan. Acne is a fkn pain, but to those who wear makeup I'd suggest investing in Estée Lauder double wear it didn't aggregate my skin and would last the whole day! No one knew I had moderate acne until I took this foundation off bcus it's that full coverage and long lasting! My acne was extremely red against my pale skin, but was mainly inflamed rather than dry and this foundation made it look like I had a handful of pimples in person and flawless skin in photos! I'd recommend doxy to anyone with moderate acne as an initial step or to those with severe acne who would prefer not to take roaccutane. However, those of you with severe acne who are desperate for clear skin I'd suggest roaccutane, as a prescription of doxy has the potential to add an additional 3 months to your journey and is only effective on certain people.

I have always had acne problems and a few years ago (age 30) it got insanely out of control all over the sides of my face. Tried everything over the counter. No effect. Dermatoligist sold me 2 very expensive topicals that had zero effect. After all that finally, this super cheap antibiotic was prescribed. I think I was supposed to take it for 2 weeks. I had to stop somewhere around 1 week because of a side effect that made my eyes get swollen at night. Even stopping early cleared up my acne from severe all over to light around my jaw/neck. Since then I rarely use soap on my face. I tone with witch hazel, put tea tree oil on my acne spots and only lotion on occasion. I have kept it under control this way for about 3 years now. Also interesting is that about 2 years ago I started taking a low dose ssri. It clears up my acne even more. I believe this is truly chemical vs. Mentally induced. After stopping the ssri the acne quickly starts popping up around my jaw despite no return of depression symptoms.

I took Doxycycline for about 13 month and though the progress was slow, my skin began to make some improvement after i'd been taking it for around 3 months. My skin wasn't perfect, I still got spots and it wasn't good enough that i would feel confident leaving the house without wearing makeup, but i figured it would get better. however after about 8 months my skin started slowly getting worse again, and by 11/12 months i was in tears on a daily basis about how bad my skin was (HUGE eruptions of cystic acne all over my face and back) and how much it hurt to touch. This leads me to think that perhaps a lot of the antibiotics encouraging effects may have been in fact down to the weather (my skin starting getting worse as the seasons changed and it got colder.) It may help some people but since coming off these and switching my birth control methods to co-cyprindiol (dinette) pill from the implant my skin is looking better than ever.

Little background: It was the end of my Junior year in high school and I got extremely extremely bad acne. It covered my ENTIRE face. I couldn't run my hands over my skin or even wash it without wincing in pain. I became deeply depressed over the summer and barely left my room. I knew I needed help and my mom took me to the doctors. They said I had severe acne and needed medication to help clear it. The first medication I had been on was doxycycline. I was on that for about 4 months and things got clear, not completely but enough. I decided to get off but of course, the acne came back. So I revisited my doctor and got prescribed minocyline and a birth control. I liked mino much better than doxy, one less pill and easier on the stomach. Finally I went to the doctors again for a check up and they decided to check my blood. I have irregular hormone levels, which was causing the acne. In order to correct the levels I needed a medication of course. So I was prescribed spironolactone! I have been on this for about 4 months and absolutely love it. It is 100 times better than any other medication I have tried. It took awhile to get started, maybe 3 months. But my skin was clear, no bumps, no cysts. One thing I would recommend is not waiting to refill.. The past week I forgot and haven't taken the pill in 5 days, and I now have multiple breakouts and cysts around my chin.. Of course I am discouraged but have faith that the pill will fix it all up quickly :)

Unfortunately.. .They kept me on this for YEARS! (high school) as soon as I stopped or if I didnt have it on hand my face would EXPLODE. Wasnt curing anything was only covering up the problem. Keep in mind these are also meds that are typically given to people to treat respitory infections. I wasn't sick..., I had acne! Later i learned my acne was triggered by food intolerance's. FOOD! Simple as that... I still resent not being more aware when i was younger and that the Doctors were as sh*tty as they were. Thankfully I still have my liver!

Ok so antibiotics are not the answer to cure your acne. I've been on doxy and Minocycline and both made me get worse acne then before I started the treatment. On Doxy, I got really sick when I took it in the morning because you can't take it with food. It also made me really sensitive to the sun. It made me break out so badly for a month before it started working, and as soon as I finished the treatment my skin came back with a vengeance, because you eventually build up an immunity to it and your pimples also get meaner and more stubborn and they spread to other areas. So if you want to not have to rely on antibiotics, try a good skincare regime (even this can take 3 months to work), and perhaps look at your hormone levels etc

Took this as a 23 year old female with moderate acne - took 100mg/day for 3 months, and then 200mg/day for 9 months. For me, this product started working quickly, and my moderate acne became mild for the first 8 months I took it. After that, the effectiveness slowly dwindled, as my acne became resistant to the antibiotic (as it always does eventually). I have heard that applying topical benzoyl peroxide can delay this resistance, but I did not try it personally. I think it's worth noting that while I have taken 5 different oral antibiotics for acne, this is the only one that seemed to upset my stomach. I experienced intermittent nausea on the higher dose. It was a pain, but not enough of a pain for me to give up my clear-er skin, so I persisted.

I've struggled with adult onset, hormonal, cystic acne for 15 or so years. Various things have helped at various times. However, I decided I no longer wanted to be on birth-control (Diane 35 was wonderful for my skin). Once I went off of it my skin exploded with very painful, long lasting cysts all over my face. My doctor put me on Doxycycline and that did a wonderful job for a couple months. When I went off of it, the cysts came back. So, Im back on and clear again. In the meantime, I've cut out refined sugar from my diet (and lost 10lbs in the first month). I'm also adding probiotics to my diet along with other fermented foods to increase good gut health. Hopefully these changes will do the trick in keeping the acne gone once I'm done this round of Doxy. I am thankful to the posters here that are detailing their holistic approaches and how they've worked. The whole reason for quitting birth-control was because I no longer wanted to rely on pills! (plus I hate my body being tricked into thinking it's pregnant all the time!)

This is my first time being prescribed doxy. I have always had a few zits here and there my whole life but nothing that I would ever describe as "problem skin". About two months ago I began to break out something fierce. Nothing helped. I keep my skin so clean, I am extremely active (I am a personal trainer), drink so much water, and have a seriously clean diet (raw vegan). I have not changed anything in my regular routine for over a year. I have no explanation for this awful outburst of cystic acne. I am on doxy, 200 mg a day. It's been 5 days now and I have seen little improvement. I know that's a short amount of time but I am so impatient. I have become super reclusive because I am so embarrassed of the way I look. I have uploaded a picture in the gallery. I would love some advice or feedback. (New here).