Hi I am a 22 year old student and have had bad cystic acne ever since I was 14 years old. I have tried changing my diet, dermatologist, and stress management, Chinese medicine, lots of exercise, some other weird shit and still I keep breaking out.
It’s scary especially how big and fast they grow on my face, literally just a small bump would turn huge within a few days.
I have been to a couple of dermatologist and most of them have been prescribing me with antibiotics which I would like to avoid given it’s long term effects with antibiotic resistance and I heard bad things from accutane and admittedly I thought the potential side effects was worse than clear skin.
I tried changing my diet and checking if dairy or sugar had some effect for the past month but I still keep breaking out. I also saw some things about hormonal acne maybe but rather than breaking out in just the chin and jaw area, they have been literally everywhere (earlobes, nose, between eyes, name any part of the face it’s been there).
It’s weird that it’s just me who has this. No one in my immediate family, (parents, siblings, grandparents, cousins) none of them have acne that has gotten this out of control.
This is my routine of far AM: cleaner (bp), toner, and moisturizer PM: cleaner (bp), salicylic acid, retinol(arazlo, from medication), and moisturizer
Overall, I’m just tired of my acne popping out and looking like a freak show for most of my life and my self esteem has never been lower to the point where can’t even look at people at the eye since I was afraid they might look at me weirdly and I isolate myself over from others. Normally when it try to wait it out, after a few months, I start this cycle all over again with deep cysts in new spots.
Am I just screwed in trying to look better without accutane? It’s gotten so bad that even if I had accutane, the scarring has gotten so deep that I feel like it doesn’t matter.
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