I am no stranger to acne, and it runs through to my family. My mom and my sister have struggled with cystic acne from their teens into their adulthood. I started my acne journey at the age of 13 (in middle school), and I’m still dealing with it at the age of 28. Through those years, I have been prescribed an increased amount of topical creams and antibiotics. And the picture below, you can see a box where I have saved years of prescriptions that I used, not including those from middle and high school, but you can only imagine how much more I had!
The only products that really helped my skin while I was on antibiotics were from a company called acne.org. This company had safe and clean products at a very reasonable price. It wouldn’t break the bank. Throughout all of these years, dermatologists wouldn’t prescribe me Accutane as they had said that I was not a candidate at the time and continued to prescribe me the same medication that I was on previously. Fast forward a couple of years later, at age 26, my acne was at its worst, and it was humiliating. I scheduled an appointment with a new dermatologist, and I took all of my prescription medications along with photos through the last decade of acne; and he immediately told me that I had no other option but to go on Accutane if I was ready.
With Accutane, you have to get blood work every month, be on birth control, and take a series of questions every month in order to get your medication; if you are sexually active, you have to wear a condom. The medication is really strong and can cause some very serious side effects and can also cause birth defects which is why they are very stern about taking birth control while on medication.
I needed to take the medication for seven to eight months, but unfortunately, immediately after I started taking the medication, I had to take a break because it was so strong that they had to decrease the dosage. I had every single side effect on the book. It caused me to have depression and painful migraines every day. Unfortunately, I couldn’t finish the medication due to the issues that I had with it. Two years later, the acne is slowly coming back, but I found that the reason why I’ve been dealing with this is because of my PCOS. Long story short, I’m always going to be dealing with this, and it’s never going to fully go away. At the moment, I’m taking a diuretic called spironolactone which is supposed to help, but I haven’t seen any progress.
Below are my ride-or-die products that have helped improve my skin and that were allowed to use while on Accutane.
Cerave Foaming Facial Cleanser
Differin Acne Gel 0.1%
Aquaphor Healing Ointment
Vaseline
Inkey List Peptide Moisturizer
Inkey List Polyglutamic Acid Serum
Besitos Maritza
