My acne has been the bane of my existence for most of my life.

>/cgl/'s skin care thread
>/r/skincareaddiction
your dermatologist sounds like a fuckwit

drink some more water and check what you eat, could be your shitty diet
I break out when I drink milk/eat ice cream or chocolate

>>18581900

Have you tried roaccutane? If not, that's the way to go. Fuck everything else, don't bother with washing your face x times a day, putting a towl on your pillow, changing diet etc. Roaccutane is all you need.

Unless that's the medicine that doesn't work.

seconding /r/skincareaddiction

also check out liah yoo's videos on youtube and simpleskincarescience blog

best of luck anon

What's your current skin care routine? Also make sure you are changing your pillow case or putting a fresh towel on your pillow every night. You might also want to wash your sheets more regularly.

>>18581900
Nuke your face with acutane
Basically resets your skin biome

What exactly did your dermatologist prescribe you? Did you try accutane?

I can't get behind what these two are saying
>>18582179
>>18582202
>>18582343
When I was 18 I tried to get rid of my acne with natural methods. I was EXTREMELY disciplined, believe me. But that shit is a waste of time that only improves your condition a bit. And then you have to uphold that extreme amount of discipline just for those miniscule improvements. I really hope your dermatologist didn't prescribe you accutane yet, because if he did and it didn't work then you are really fucked. Otherwise it's the be all end all solution for severe acne.

>>18582354
Er. Changing your pillow case isn't a "natural method"... it's basic cleanliness? You change your underwear every day don't you? Think about how much time you spend per night with your face on that pillow. It soaking up all the oils on your face. If you don't change it its pretty much like sitting in used underwear and wondering why you smell bad. Depending on how oily your face is you can go more days in between washes but for cystic acne why even bother being lazy.

>>18582346
If I drank a bunch of accutane could I reset my gut biome so that I would have less constpibation daily or bloating?

>>18582356
Why are you wasting both of our time with this strawman argument? I regularly changed my pillow case before I even started fixing my acne with natural methods. It's basic cleanliness, correct. I never claimed something else.

>>18581900
oh, have you tried stopping sugar?
after endless advice from everywhere, at the age of 20 a new dermatologist told me to stop sugar and all the acne vanished forever
it's pretty clear cut for me, since if i eat a box of cookies or something it sometimes comes back

Look into hormone balancing foods and herbs. I had bad hormonal acne as well (girl btw), tried a lot of treatments but drinking peppermint tea was one of the most successful ones. Of course you should pursue avenues besides jill stein herb magick, but give that a try as well. Ultimately, though, I think the best treatment was just getting older... now that I'm 22, it's almost totally gone. Keep your chin up op

>>18582354
>I tried to get rid of my acne with natural methods
>natural methods
what does that mean?

you cant just try random shit and hope it works with acne OP, you have to find the source of it
I fell for the stridex meme and tried cleansing oil/jap method and that shit didnt help me at all
As a matter of fact, a lot of the products recommended didnt fucking work for me
After literally 2 years of getting my worst acne I realized that I broke out due to stress
I eventually got around to going to the doctor and got some epiduo and that shit worked like magic
I try to schedule my work better so I dont get stressed the fuck out
Last time I broke out was because I ate some cookies and milk, happens to me everytime i forget and everytime I cant pinpoint to cookies or milk
Needless to say, now I wash my face once in the evening with cleanser and my face is acne free
Youve got to know your face/skin and find out whats good for it

accutane should be as last resort man

You're a big pizza

>>18582429
>what does that mean?
Anything but medication.

>>18581900
Spots are a combination of sweat, natural oils, and dirt getting into your pores.
Change pillowcase often (as has been said)
Wash face in the morning and at night using spot wash.
What is your diet like?
If you eat a lot of fatty/acidic/generally unhealthy food, this will make your body produce more oil, and increase your contact with grease ie. spots.
Eat only healthy things

Do accutane but in the healthy way

Eat lots of Sweet potatoes, lots of vitamin C like lemon to boost collagen

Your face may be sensitive to cleansers, I honestly just wash my face with warm water and cold water. I don't rub it at all, just pat dry.

This is after years of putting on cleansers, and other creams.

Moisturizer is good though if your skin depends on it too much you may flake when you run out.

Diet is really underrrated.

OP here, I fell asleep after postin the thread.
I have had a super solid diet for a year and a half, no sugar, tons of vegetables and protien basically are what I eat every day with tons and tons of water.
I'm very cleanly, I change pillow cases every 2 days, always clean my face every day and night.
Medicine I tried was some oral pill to reduce inflammation and then retin-a cream .01 for a year, never skipped, acne never changed.
Maybe derm is a fuck but I see nothing else I can do except natural remedy black magic.

>>18582768
I should add that I have a completely fucked sleep schedule, falling asleep at 3 or 4am every night. Though I haven't heard any correlation of sleep and acne aside from building up stress.

>>18581900
Medicine won't help the underlying problem. I can guarantee you that if you follow these steps your acne will go away and your skin will clean.
>1. Try the gallon challenge and drink a gallon of water everyday throughout the day. A little under is fine but really try to make sure you do it.
>2. Watch your diet. Stay away from processes foods. I changed my diet to mostly steak and chicken and my skin really cleared up. I have like no sugar in my diet besides natural from fruits. I mean I still eat snacks but it's pretty rare
>3. Wash your face if it's feeling greasy and try to workout every now and then to get a sweat on.

At a year for sure all your acne should be gone if you follow these steps. I bet you start seeing improvements 2 weeks to a month in though

>>18582774
Stress (cortisol) is a major factor. Reduce it

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41KB, 600x708px

>>18582768
>Medicine I tried was some oral pill to reduce inflammation and then retin-a cream .01 for a year
Oh dude, I'm very knowledgeable when it comes to Tretinoin and .01% doesn't do shit. Studies prove that there is virtually any difference between .01% and .001% when it comes to results. You need a minimum of .025%. But what you actually need is isotretinoin. That's the oral form of tretinoin and it will reduce your acne permanently. Meanwhile with tretinoin, you would have to continue applying for your acne to stay away. If you stopped using it, your acne would absolutely come back again.

>Maybe derm is a fuck but I see nothing else I can do except natural remedy black magic.
Go find a different derm and explain to him that you want isotretinoin. Trust me, I wasted 2 years going the natural healing methods route and it was a complete was of time. I went on accutane when I was 20 and I regret not taking it earlier.

>>18582774
A good sleep schedule is very important, don't underestimate it. Being mentally healthy helps a lot with acne. Too bad acne itself makes you mentally unhealthy, so it's like a self-perpetuating cycle.

To anyone saying cleanliness or anything similar is a factor is completely incorrect. Microcomedones form way further into the skin. Simply washing your face or changing your pillowcases won't make a difference, unless all your getting is tiny pustules that most people are prone to.
Acne is caused by genes, hormone inbalance (like OP said) and stress. Inflammatory acne is caused by infections in comedones caused by bacteria, but p.acnes is found on the skin of everyone, so it's not that simple.

>>18583102
This.
I think all of us know enough people who touch and scratch their face all the time, eat as much McDonalds as they want and have clear skin.

>>18582907
I've literally been doing everything you've said for more than a year and still have acne lol

>>18583419
Like a whole gallon of water everyday single day?

I didn't have acne as bad as you're describing, but I had it in my adult life until I did a few simple things:

- stopped putting anything except for water on my face
- stopped drinking milk
- started drinking more water

>>18583568>>18583540
Yeah, I have 5 gallons that I cool and constantly refill. I'm a big guy, 6'5", so it's not hard for me to get a gallon a day in.