I've been taking Spiro for about a year and a half now. Before I started, I had mild-moderate acne. But it was embarrassing, because I would get big pustules or cysts sometimes and NOTHING was working. I finally went to a derm who I knew prescribed Spiro and she gave it to me right away. I started off on 50 mg, then increased to 100. It took maybe 2 months to kick in and then I was completely clear. I didn't get a single zit for a YEAR. That's amazing if you're an acne sufferer like me. I recently stopped taking it just to 'experiment' because I thought maybe I had just grown out of my acne by now. But my skin's been breaking out, so I guess it really was the Spiro working. I've started taking it again and am hoping it will work just as well. If you're a female and have tried nearly everything, I highly recommend Spiro. It's also decreased my oil production in my skin so I am not having to constantly blot my face.

I'm 30 y.o. female, had adult acne for at least 10 years but it got much worse the past 4 (grad school and moving to Louisiana climate probably didn't help). My mother had terrible acne until menopause and I was almost resigned to the same fate after spending thousands of dollars on all sorts of stuff over the years, including dermatologists, with no long-term solution. I've been on BC the whole itme which has helped minimally. I tried spiro alone for a month and saw some, but not much change. What finally worked for me has been topical tretinoin cream (1%, the strongest Rx), WITH spironolactone 100mg in the morning AND a long cycle of minacycline to clear up the rest after the initial breakout/adjustment period was over. During the 3 days before and 4 days after my period starts, I increase to 100mg in AM and 50mg PM. It took about 3-4 months to get to a clean slate but for then for the past 3 months I've finally reached a good maintenance period where I can even miss a day or two of my normal routine / meds and not have a problem- now just waiting for the scars to disappear. It used to be disaster if I so much as used a different face wash. An important note though: For 6 weeks I was taking 100 am plus 100 pm. When I went for lab check, my potassium was on the borderline level. I had eaten a persimmon the day before, which is high in potassium (I didn't realize this until I researched it after the lab results) but still, I want to reiterate the importance of lab checks until you get everything sorted out if your doctor recommends. Heart health > complexion. Anyway, I did notice diuretic effects the first week but after that either my body adjusted or I just stopped noticing the frequency of having to pee. I gained 1lb since starting it but I don't think that is due to the spiro. My breasts were a little tender at first and my husband said they were a little bigger but I can't tell. Def better to take in the AM than evening if you have a choice though because you don't want to wake up in the middle of the night unnecessarily to go to the restroom. At first, my face was embarrassingly dry but this was primarily due to the tretinoin and I knew I just had to suffer through it. Now that my skin has adjusted, another (what I consider huge) benefit of spiro is my hair is much less oily (as is my face). Before I had to wash it every 3 days; now I wash it every 7-8 (unless I sweat a lot, in which case I'm washing on principle, not b/c it's oily). I dread having to give spiro up if/when I get pregnant. You def need to maintain dr's supervision on this med though. This is a long review but hope the info is helpful!

Hello so I will be 30 days on Spiro 50mg a day on 11/27/14 I haven't noticed an impact yet but I am trying to stay patient even though their are days I feel hopeless.. a bit of background of myself I will be 21yrs old in December I was on the birth control implanon (implant on arm) since 2012 of june recently got off of it in May 2014 because I wanted a break from b.c but I have never suffered from acne problems just the normal breakout (2-3 small ones a month) just started breaking out in the end of august 2014 lower of my face mild acne around mouth on jawline n chin so I figured it had to be hormonal sincr I got off the implanon so my gyno put me on orthotricyclen lo I been on that since Sept 21, 2014 but I still have mild acne on lower of my face get new pimples evevery day can SOMEONE give me SOME ADVICE OR SHARE THEIR EXPERIENCE WITH spiro. Please and thank you I have become so unhappy and my confidence has decreased alot! ************8months on pill Hello everyone so I have now been on spironolactone 50mg a day for about 8 months now i did have an initial break out but after the 4month on it i cleared up i didn't have any breakouts just a few small ones that werent noticeable i do still have my red n dark marks from post acne but recently i have noticed that i have been gettin new ones out of nowhere and Im scared that my skin will go back to what it was..I only missed one pill which was on april 27th so what i did was take 2 pills the next day since i missed one the day before..could that have anything to do with why im starting to break out? Can someone plz help me or give me some advice, im freakin out

hello all, this is my first ever product review & i want to share my story. I'm a 24 y.o. female who has suffered with severe/moderate acne since about 12 or 13. BCP helped my skin for 6 years, keeping my acne under control (I was taking YAZ/YAZMIN). I went off bcp when I was 20, to give my body a break and broke out horribly. (As in over 15 inflamed pimpes and more than 2 or 3 cystic). Going off YAZ, it took me 6 months to get a period back. In this 6 months, I was so worried I had permanently messed up my body, that I swore off of BCP forever, even with my acne troubles. My doc said "YOU WANT A PERIOD? I can give you a pill to induce your period?" (No doctor that is not what i want...) "you might have pcos, but I dont know go see the gyno". Couldn't get a gyno apt. For 7 months where I live. My period returned after 6 months, I got checked out and I do not have pcos. BCP just messed with my hormones. I tried accutane for 3 months, and couldn't handle the dry flakey skin. Every time I would go to the bathroom, my face would be covered in visible white dry flakes. My lips were cracking no matter how much moisturizer/ChapStick. It was awful, and unhidable so I went off. Clearish skin after this (3 pimples on avrg) for about 2 months, then my acne returned with a vengeance! Before I tried spiro , I used proactive for 5 months, (with horrible results, made my acne way worse) then the acne.org regime for over a year and it worked at first but started losing its affect. In the beginning acne.org worked " good enough" leaving me with about 6-8 inflamed & 1 or 2 cystic at once. Near the end of the only acne.org use for a year, before Spiro I was around 20-30 inflamed pimples, whiteheads all over nose and cystic acne all over jawline. Such a mess. I waited about a month after getting a prescription for Spiro to try it, because I was scared of the initial breakout. I already had 20-30 inflamed zits and to think of it getting worse was almost unbearable. I also work in the remote wilderness so I was afraid of possible side affects during this time. After one horrible breakout in this month, I had over 30 pimples. I was so embarrassed. I didn't want to leave the house even with coverup on and working out in the bush I couldn't coverup my acne so I was always so embarrassed when I would wakeup with oozing zits everywhere everyday and new ones would form during the day while ide be working. I was miserable about my face, but I have suffered about my acne so much in my life I tried to just not care what I looked like. My last job of the season was 2 weeks alone with a cute boy, so I dreaded having my usual acne filled face. I started taking Spiro about 1 month before this trip. My acne reacted almost immediately. I had a few patches of bad breakouts but nothing worse then my usual horribleness. My face SLOWLY has improved. The first 2 weeks I saw about a 10% reduction, I started in 25 mg. Week 3 I went up to 50, small improvements continued, about 20-30% better. Week 4, the week of the trip with the cute boy.. I uped it to 75 mg. My face slowly continued to improve. After 2 more weeks I now had maybe 10 or less inflamed zits at this point, still not perfect but WAY better than around 30! Holy crap! That was about the 2 month mark. I have now just finished month 3, and currently have ONLY 4-5 pimples. (And alot of scarring from my 30 pimple breakout). I am still taking 75 mg. I am going to get my blood tested and get some docs advice before going up any further. This med. Has been known to be tumorigenic in mice in high doses which scares me, but I hate my acne and am clearly willing to take chances just like a lot of you. -My skin is still regularly greasy but I can handle that. -I'm still breaking out here n there but that is a dream compared to what ive been through. -I get regular headaches on this med. but I have deemed the headaches worth the cause. -I had an extra period last month because of the med. Hopefully that will not happen again. -sometimes I get nausea after taking it, but I just try and ignore it -my mood and sex drive are unaffected :) -my energy level is unaffected :) - this med it a diaretic so I have to pee frequently -I have drank alcohol (not recommended) and I am usually a cheap drunk, but I feel this med makes the booze hit you extra hard. I did not experience bad side effects aside from a usual hangover. I don't drink often but I wouldn't recommend trying to keep up with your old limits. TRY THIS BEFORE ACCUTANE! I'm no doc. But I've been on both and this has been way easier on me and less scary. The initial breakout was not as bad but my acne was horrible (worse then when I started accutane) when I started Spiro. Be patient because results are so gradual and you may suffer a bit for them ( initial breakout, headaches, stomach aches, having to pee constantly). But if you are suffering anyhow because of the way you look, and the way people look at you, give this a try. Its a slow improvent that has made me much more happy even though I still have a few zits.

The biggest cause for Spironolactone not working is a bad diet. You simply cannot go onto this medication without understanding it's used for high blood pressure first and foremost. Unless your doctor also gives you a referral to a dietitian to work on a low potatssium, low sodium diet, you will find that mood swings, bloating and feeling fatigued are because your potassium levels are out of wack. Spironolactone works as an anti-androgen but for those of you who are under the age of 30, I would suggest going with a mono-phasic birth control pill for several months and changing your diet to omit anything dairy related. It is a well known, documented fact, that -all- cow milk, organic or GMO, has hormone inducing ingredients that can wreck havoc on your body. If you find that nothing works and your doctor gives you an RX for anti-androgens it means your diet is crap and you have to change it because as soon as you get off the drug, your hormones will go back to fluctuating and you'll break out again. As for me, I went on a no-dairy, low glycemic diet, cut out coffee, soda, etc. I also use the oil wash method along with honey masks at night instead of chemical cleansers. After six months I only had mild improvement and after only one month of Spironolactone, I had zero breakouts and my skin healed. After that first month I didn't go back onto it and because of my diet and exercise I'm 100% breakout free. Please do a lot of research before you jump into such a harsh drug.

I have been battling with breakouts and mild/moderate acne for the past 2 years, and it seemed t be getting worse and worse. I am currently 19 going on 20 and never have I ever dealt with any breakouts in my early-mid teen years, even when I was going through puberty all I would get is the occasional pimple or two, otherwise my skin was flawless. Right when my senior year of high school started I started breaking out like crazy (I was going through an awful break up at the time but it was still bad) I looked "hive-y". I thought it was just me being stressed out, when I started noticing irregular periods and hair growth in places it should not be growing. YIKES! I still thought it was just my hormones being wacky and that they would work themselves out after I started college. However, they obviously did not. By the middle of my freshman year in college I was having a mental break down, I couldn't figure out why or how I was breaking out all of the time. The last time I could remember my face being pimple free was when I was 15?! Shouldn't I be done breaking out by now?! So I came back home this summer and talked to my parents. They figured it was time for me to see a doctor. I met up with 3 different doctors, the first 2 of whom were woman, and of course they just threw the birth control pill on me. Which I will not get into, but I am very much so against for many reasons I clearly will not waste my time with here. Long story short all it does is "cover-up" the symptoms. The third and final doctor I met up with an amazing endocrinologist/gynecologist who from what I've heard, knew his stuff. He knew I had PCOS by the blood work and from what I told him. I have elevated testosterone levels (almost twice the normal amount a woman should have) and weird LSH and FSH levels. He prescribed provera for 5 days of the month to take to help regulate my period and "restart" my menstrual cycle. He also prescribed me Spironolactone at 25 mg a day to help with my excessive hair growth and mild/moderate ace/pimples. I also would like to add that I am 5'8 and only about 125/130 lbs. I am considered someone with a "lean" case of PCOS. For the past 3 weeks and 5 days now I've been taking it, and at first, I had the typical head-aches, bloating, some diarrhea randomly, a little bit of nausea, and moderate insomnia (waking up for a good 2 hours in the middle of the night and struggling going back to sleep, thanks Netflix) by the 2nd week my skin was finally going back to being "flawless" I still had a pimple or two, and some scars from picking (which I am guilty of). The side-effects were going away and all I noticed was how I was peeing a little bit more and was a little bit more thirsty. I felt as if the medication was finally working. Entering my 3rd week I was thirsty, but it was just a dry-mouth kind of thirsty. Then out of nowhere, BAM, I broke out all over again! That was frustrating because I didn't know how or why my skin was going backwards. But, by doing some research on the oh-so-friendly internet, most people suffer from "initial-breakouts" meaning it basically gets better before it gets worse. Which in my case, made complete sense. My skin, as of today is on the near end of week 3. It just feels oily and is recovering from my initial break-out earlier this week. My blackheads/pores on my nose feel clogged and gross. I am so terrified that my skin is going to stay stuck like this all over again, or that this medication is just "done" working and is going backwards. Or that I should be on a higher dosage and that my doctor was wrong in telling me I don't need a "higher" one. I also would like to add that my hair has been shedding a little bit more than normal, it feels as if it's slowing down finally but I'm still a little worried about that awful side effect. I just hope I'm not alone in all of this craziness. Or that initial break-outs go away, or if my skin is stuck. I'll keep ya'll updated. I guess my problem is I'm just so darn impatient.

Six years on Spirano and just quit for the second time in that period. I would break through every so often, but it's more dependable and safe than antibiotics and BCP. BCP is supposed to increase its effectiveness, but there are risks to excess estrogen, most notably weight gain and emotional sensitivity. It's almost worth it for the clear skin and diauretic effects.

It does work, but it's not a cure. It's a band aid like most antibiotics. As long as your on the medicine it will work, once you come off of it for a while it will come back if you have severe acne. If you're willing to stay on this medicine for a long period of time then it will benefit you. As for myself I don't like taking medicine for a long time so I'll give it 4 stars for doing it's job.

I'm a 21 year old female with hormonal acne. I began taking Spiro in 100 mg doses daily in July 2013, and was upped to 200 mg daily doses in November 2013. It's definitely a medicine that requires patience and will only show results long-term, but I can say that my acne is much less severe. The acne I do get is much smaller and easier to get rid of, and the rare cystic pimple (once every 3 months approx.) goes away much faster. This medicine IS very dehydrating so it would be best to keep a water bottle available at all times. It can also make mornings a bit more difficult since you NEED to hydrate when you wake up, after sleeping with 8 hours or so with no water. My period also is a little irregular right now, and I am menstruating twice a month. Spiro will mess with your period in some way, so consult your doctor about it first.

While I was recovering from anorexia nervosa, I developed moderate cystic acne on my cheeks and chin. It was painful and humiliating; it only drove my already introverted self to stay in and hide away from the world. I felt like a monster and I avoided looking at myself in the mirror for weeks at a time. About 7 months ago I started taking spironolactone, 100mg'probably the best decision ever. Not gonna lie though, the first three months were hell. I got an initial breakout that was pretty brutal, and I was chronically fatigued for those months. Also, I would get my period twice a month. But all of those negative symptoms dissipated as time went on. I began seeing real results around the 5th month. The key with spiro is BE PATIENT! It took a while but the results are so worth it that i would do it again in a heartbeat. My skin is smooth and completely clear (although i do get a random little spot rarely..gone very fast) and so is this acne on my back! It feels so good to wash my face and just feel'nothing. No pain, just smooth skin, everywhere. The only thing I dislike about this medicine is that it is just a temporary fix. If you stop taking it for a couple of weeks you will break out again.. but if you are desperate for hope and change like I was then I say go for it! Tips: Drink a lot more water than you're used to. this medication will make you thirsty. If you are drinking alcohol make sure to drink EXTRA water because Spiro is a diuretic and it has the potential to dehydrate you. Sleep at least 8 hours a day. seriously. You will become a zombie for 3 months if you don't.