Tag: Tretinoin

So, it’s safe to say I was wrong.

My recent battle towards acne with antibiotics seemed like it was working, and on this post you can see how happy I am with my skin and the results. And for some time, my skin was doing pretty good. I even told everyone about it – how antibiotics cured my acne and how my acne didn’t come back. I was even planning on doing a post about it – a little update on my skin and how it looked even better after the treatment. I didn’t think I would have to do another acne update, but here we are. I feel disappointed, but then again there are people who have gotten help from antibiotics, so maybe I had to try and see for myself. We are all individuals anyway.

As I said, for a long time I felt like my skin was doing amazing. I had some breakouts every once in a while, but I wasn’t stressing about them. There was a pimple or two and then they were gone. There were some major breakouts, but then it all settled down. Then there were more pimples.. and this time, they didn’t seem to go away. I feel like my acne came back super quickly, overnight. Bam, and it was all over my jaw again. Possibly worse, than ever.

I have to admit – seeing these photos for the first time was a shock. Is that really my skin? It sure doesn’t feel like it.

Before I felt super down about the acne. It has been stressful and hard on me mentally. But I have kinda changed the way, that I think about it and how I see myself and how I talk about myself. Acne isn’t the first thing that I see, when I look into the mirror. And obviously, since it’s on my jaw I can’t even see it that well, than if it was on my forehead for example.

Maybe I’m tired of the battle – I don’t want to be at war with myself. I don’t want to waste any energy towards something as boring as acne. I’m focusing on the good things – the skin on my forehead, nose and cheeks. There my skin is beautiful. To me, it’s flawless. And then there are obviously other good things – not just my looks.

My skin (and my mood) after the antibiotics.

To sum everything together, I did a little list. I have now tried almost all the ways to treat acne. Including

• Isotretinoin
  I ate two rounds of some kind of isotretinoin drug – at least I’m pretty sure it was that, or at least one of them was. I can’t be sure, ’cause I can’t remember the names. This was when I was about 13 years old. Those did help a bit on each time, but then again it didn’t, so I’m horrified of ever trying this again.
• Differin
  This was around my teens too, nope NOPE.
• Birth control
  This did help and kept the acne at bay for seven years – damn my skin was perrrfect during those years.
• Acnatac 
  It did help a bit and I blogged about it, read all on Acnatac tag.
• Antibiotics 
  It did help at the time, but acne came back after. I did monthly posts during my four month treatment, check the Apocyclin tag.
• Being wheat-free aka gluten free
  It was great for my stomach and maybe it did balance my skin ever so slightly, but it could also be the full moon, so I’m not convinced.
• Being sugar-free aka ditch the sweets
  There are several times I have tried this for some weeks or maybe a month at a time, but I dread to inform you, that eating sweets every once in a while – say once a week – isn’t the reason for my acne.
• Being dairy-free
  Now this is interesting. I think being dairy-free does balance my skin a bit. Then again I still get acne, so everything kinda sucks, don’t you think? Okay to be honest I like eating less dairy – it’s good for my health and actually this one makes sense, ’cause dairy can affect hormones and my acne is hormonal. But anyway you must be shocked, but being dairy free didn’t cure my acne.
• Drinking lots of water
  Honestly?
• Changing the pillowcase regularly
  I’m just kidding at this point.
• Coconut oil
  Hahah you’re killing me

I mean, you can not not laugh at this at this point.

There are still some things I haven’t tried. So, let’s hope the next acne post shows the actual solution to my acne, which is clearly hormonal. You can tell my acne is hormonal, ’cause it started right after I quit the pill and it’s on my jaw – the typical place for hormonal acne.

But to get to the point or to end this post the way I want to end it, here’s something that happened: Last Saturday, fresh after sauna, Risto said to me: “You are beautiful” and then he put his hand on my chest right where my heart is and said “and you are beautiful in here too”. And that – ladies and gentlemen – is what matters in life.

In this photo you can see, how my skin looks with makeup. Flawless elsewhere, on my jaw you can see the acne even through makeup.

Feel free to share your experiences with acne! This can be our little peer support place.

PS. I accidentally lost your comments. Thank you all for commenting and sorry!