ADVICE/INSIGHT WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED! I have been on spironolactone for 2 months now. Here is what my experience has been like: new breakouts every day (one pimple at a time, sometimes clumps), horrible mood swings, some depression, acne in places I've never had it before, slower healing skin, darkening of all the hyperpygmentation on my face, nausea, and that's just to name a few. Heres some background information about me: I am a 21 year old college student. I always had good skin, probably one pimple on my face normally, if not clear. Around my 21st birthday I began to get ugly, long lasting deep pimples (not cysts but under the skin) around my period. My derm prescribed me this and from the 2nd week I took it the breakouts started. Deep cysts, followed now by just pimples popping up everywhere. I can't keep up with my skin and the stress it has caused me. Tomorrow I am going to my derm and I am going to try Bactrim for a few months to combat the breakouts I will probably get from getting off the medication. I also started aczone which has helped prevent new breakouts so far. I believe spiro was too strong of a medication for me to be put on. It fluctuated my hormones so severly that I am not sure if I will ever feel/look normal again. My advice, if you are young (25 and below), your hormones may not need another factor effecting them. I am hoping the best for this antibiotic but if not I am doing a low dose round of accutane. I apologize if I seem negative, however this has been the roughest 2-3 months of my life, I have little self confidence and I find myself avoiding going to class, seeing friends, and even seeing my boyfriend. I am sure for PCOS and older women, this drug is a miracle worker. However for me, it amplified the awful hormonal imbalances that I am facing at this time in my life. If you have had a similiar experience, or are my age and having these problems, please reach out. I also understand this medication can take up to 6 months to work, however my skin has already completely changed from it. I can hardly keep my pores unclogged, and while it has cut my oil production in half, my skin looks like a hyper pigmented mess and still produces acne (cystic included). Again, I apologize for the negativity and I hope all of us can find a way to manage our acne.

To start this off, I want to mention that my doctor did blood tests and found that my DHEA sulfate was very high (622 when it should only be 400 something) so I had some pretty clear evidence that my acne was hormonal. Anyway, one week on the meds! (And three weeks back on birth control). My face is a lot clearer, I haven't really had any new pimples show up, though it does still feel like there is stuff under the surface. As far as side effects, I haven't had many. At first I had to pee a lot of course, but that pretty much went away after the first day (though I did wake up in the middle of the night last night to pee, but I'd had a lot of water before bed). I felt very slightly dizzy once, but I drank some water and it was gone, so I'm not sure if I even was feeling dizzy. I've had some heartburn a couple of times (once after having a glass of whisky) but I'm not sure if I can attribute that to the meds. The thing is, it was a different kind of heart burn, like pressure more than burning. I've also had some super dry skin on my face since starting. I bought cerave in the tub and have used it at night (as well as aquaphor once) and also used a 2% glycolic acid wipe one night, and that seemed to take care of most of the flakes. I'm also still using my pocket derm meds every couple of nights, and washing my face with water once a day and cerave foaming cleanser once a day. I'm going in for blood work next week to make sure there's no problems, and I'll update with any new information then!

I did 2 rounds of accutane and it kept acne away for maybe a year. But it slowly starting coming back. I had a bad cause of acne but it wasn't cystic. Now i had 2 huge cystic zits that he actually gave me cortisone shot in. Ouchy! The derm put me on 100mg of spiro and now my face looks Bad!! I may have jumped the gun but I had 2 huge cystic zits that scared me. I think if I would've just let them be I would've been ok but I started taking the spiro and now I look like crap. Tons of tiny red pimples all over cheeks. Is this purging? I also just generally feel like crap. Headache, light headed, body ache, groggy. I hope this med pans out for me.

I have been on spiro 100 mg for about six months now and have seen great results; however about three months ago I noticed my hair hair really begun thinning. A little bit of history about myself. I am 47 years old and have suffered from cystic acne since a teenager. I have done several courses of accutane, which cleared my skin greatly only to go back to breaking out again. My new derm said I would love Spiro since my breakouts were hormonal. She was right. It reduced my oiliness and cleared up my skin. My skin never looked so good. I got so many compliments. However, then I started noticing the hair loss. So I do have some family history of hair thinning in women and had noticed that my crown had thinned in the last seven years or so. However this new hair loss has been pretty drastic. My scalp is really showing on the top of my head, and I seem to be shedding lots of hair when shampooing and throughout the day. I'm going back in to see my derm tomorrow hoping she may have some answers. I share this info in case anyone else has experienced similar symptoms. I've read up on it and can't really find that hair loss is a symptom rather quite the opposite as it's used for hair loss?? So if you don't experience the hair loss with it, I think it's great and would recommend trying it.

I am a 22 year old female and have had pimples here and there for most of my teen years. December 2014 my skin was gorgeous, clearer than it has ever been and then came January.. All the sudden the skin around my mouth erupted in rash like bumps and then progressed to acne -looking bumps as well as cysts that moved down to my chin/ jaw and up along the sides of my nose & even under my eye ( which swelled shut at one point and turned black & blue due to a cyst). I was told by 4 different doctors that I had perioral dermatitis & was put on antivirals, antibiotics, topicals and had blood work and cultures taken of my skin. No luck. I finally saw a dermatologist who put me on more antibiotics (100mg) for 2 months which did nothing but give me UTIs. After a second visit with him last week, and zero improvement (despite trying every holistic treatment under the sun, including going sodium laurel sulfate -free) he put me on spironolactone. It has been 1 week and my skin is nightmare-ish right now. I have multiple cysts and my chin is covered in painful spots. I feel so depressed, my confidence is shot and most days I can't bring myself to leave the house. I hope and pray my skin starts to improve soon. After 6 months of this constant physical & emotional pain, I don't know how much more I can take. Anyone have a similar experience? Or advice?

Well, sprionolactone did work well for clearing my acne. I've been on it for almost two months, and my face is completely clear and was completely clear towards the end of the first month. But I'm now having to get off of it because of the serious side effects I've had. The less serious side effects started as soon as I got on the medication, but I brushed them off in hopes that they would subside as I continued the medication. But as I started the second month, almost two weeks in, I got up one morning and my right leg was completely numb. Not asleep or tingly, completely numb. Hahaha. (It's really not funny, but it's making me laugh now because I was in a huge rush, so I JUMPED out of bed, and fell immediately to the ground. Several times hahaha.) Anyway, It's so easy to stay on meds for acne cause it sort of feels like a one stop shop. No need to change your diet, don't have to be too careful about what you wash your face with, at least that's how it was for me. I've always been a natural person, trying to cure anything I had with natural remedies, supplements, internal cleanses, all that good stuff. And it all worked until my skin decided to go absolutely crazy. I started breaking out like normal, probably something you could clear with a good cleanser, but then it started getting progressively worse. It started to be more cystic, and then really before I could even keep up with it, I had horrendous cystic pimples everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Shoulders, down my arms, all over my entire face, even sometimes on my thighs. It was ridiculous and I always felt gross. So I broke down and gave up my ideas for natural cures for a while, and got on the meds. They cleared me right up! About one month and almost everything was gone. But then of course I had the terrible side effects, which is why I'm now having to get off. My sister on the other hand had no side effects at all. Everyone is different. So, hopefully I can find a natural way to keep it clear from now on. Good luck to anyone trying:)

I have moderate stubborn acne and even though it didn't clear me up, it did make my breakouts less frequent. At any given time I would have about 10 pimples on my face and while this I'd only have about 4 or 5. It's definitely for hormonal acne though. I did only take it for a month though before trying something else so maybe I just didn't give it enough time.

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.

After taking only two doses of this medicine i ended up int he hospital with a "burnt" esophagus (easiest way to put it). After loads of iv's and injected pain medicines I could not eat real foods for almost a month without pain. Almost a year later and I still haven't taken even an advil due to how scared I am of it coming back again. Took a z-pack 8 months ago and it all came back, my doctor said it will take very very long to go away. Never got to see skin change.

I tried every topical there is with no success. Just before spiro my skin was irritated, filled with red marks and was still breaking out. And then i found out spiro. Changed my skin COMPLETELY. Less oily,less facial hair and the best.. no more acne! My skin was healing and i was feeling great! I tried to get out of it but after a couple of months i started breaking out again. I started it again and will stop only when i decide to have a baby. UPDATE: I am on 7th week, now my problem is basically comedones that get inflamed and of course the red marks. I will take care of them after i am done with comedones.