Apply tea tree oil to your affected areas, twice a day.

Get a perscription for clindamycin cream and apply that too.

Avoid using Accutane unless the above doesn't work. I've used Accutane, and although its effective, its not a permanent, long-term solution. The acne came back after i stopped taking it. It also can mess up your digestive system and thin out your hair (happened to me) along with those other horrid side effects.

Thank me later.

Do not listen to people who say use proactiv..

That shit does not fucking work

You are just making your acne worse.

Go see your doctor as they provide the best medication for your skin.

Couple things to keep in mind , wash your face twice a day.

DO NOT TOUCH YOUR FACE, you do not know how much i have to stress this, your hands are so dirty , worse than your toilet seat.

sleep on a clean towel every night

anyone drink alcohol while on accutane? up to now i've resisted a lot from my friends to drink and haven't. liver damage is something you shouldn't fuk with. but there's going to be a party with alcohol and girls lol.... hm, what to do.

give the alcohol to the girls.. and offer to take them home..

http://i2.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/...0I%20mean..png

on an unrelated note.. no apparent side effects after the first week of 40mg a day cept for mild dryness

Be prepared for your skin to get super dry...all over your body ;)
Start moisturizing now because it gets brutal. Super itchy, and lips start flaking and drying up.
Use a moisturizing cream not a lotion, as the lotion does not penetrate deep enough...and as you already know drink a ton of water

I just finished my 80mg/day dosage 2 weeks ago and so far so good, skins still dry :p

70 dollars over 3 months is just over 23 dollars a month. You said proactiv works for you, I'd say thats a pretty reasonable solution.

the yuusha from 2 and a half years ago thanks you for your post :rukidding:

70 dollars is like 5 hours of work.. :IDL

Lol take it from me, once you stop proactiv , you will see how much of a bullshit product it is.

Read the first post, replied. Glad I could help.

if it works, then hell it might be worth your money. you mentioned that you have tried changing your diet but to no avail. wouldn't it be worth your piece of mind to know that you are buying a product that is guaranteed to help fight acne and save the massive headache it is causing you?

Yeah I stopped using proactiv ages ago, I just have the odd zit now and then but scarring on my face and neck from before using it, still exists :heckno:

I really should try tea tree oil, everyone tells me it works wonders.

You guys make me crackle when you say you use proactiv.

That shit is so garbage.

It seems to work for some people.

try eating less junk food

I do this once a week...
Wash your face with warm water and soap... (opens pours and cleanses)
Take baking soda and place a bit in one hand, take a wet cotton pad and make the soda wet so its a bit like a paste but just do it as you go in your palm.
Dab it over your whole face.

Chill. It'll dry up after a bit. Once completely dry. Rinse. I usually shower after because its a bit hard to rinse off.

Got this from a family friend who is a family doctor.

+ i sleep with a towel on my pillow, use a facial scrub, sauna 3 days a week and use biotherm aqua in the mornings.

It all helps.

i went to my family doctor and he gave me a cream and antibiotics it seems to be working

Lol Im not going to say it again.

Proactiv works until you stop using it.

Dont be fooled by big companies who have celebrities on it , they get paid to be there and say whatever the fuck they want to say and they photoshop that shit.

And DOCTORS give the best possible creams + treatment .

They are doctors for a reason.

I used proactiv 2-3 years ago.

There were some results, but after I stopped using it my acne came back and it was much worse.
Some of the ingredients in proactiv are able to strip paint off walls... wtf that's not good for anybody's skin.

If anyone is still considering on using proactiv, I highly suggest you don't try it.

At the moment I'm using clindamycin+benzoyl peroxide topical cream prescribed to me at a doctors place and using aloe vera gel at night to try and heal the scars.
My breakouts are less frequent, and there aren't many red bumps.

I'm going to start sleeping with a clean towel over my pillow every night, hopefully it's going to help my skin out.

go to your doc and get Minocycline or Doxycycline either one is good and get the cream TacTuo, shit works like magic. TacTuo suppose to be the new best cream, just came out not too long ago is what my doc told me. Dont bother with the stuff in the stores...that stuff may work but its a hit or miss... prescription is the way to go..you can thank me later

Hi all, I'm a pharmacist, and I'd like to briefly outline what acne is, and what happens because judging on the comments prior, I think there's quite a bit of confusion with most people thinking their skin is dirty or something.

Acne is an inflammation of the the oil pores in the skin, and it usually happens at the face, back, or chest. There are three contributors as to why it happens.

In the oil pores, which are important to the skin's normal function, are glands that create the oil, called the sebum glands. The size of these glands and the output of oil from them, is controlled by hormones (molecules in the body that act as signallers), the main one being the male sex hormone dihydrotestosterone. In many acne sufferers, the amount of this testosterone is increased, causing the sebum glands at the skin to enlarge and/or secrete excessive amounts of oil.

The second contributor to acne is the walls of the oil pore themselves. In many acne sufferers, the cell walls of the pore itself regenerate and shed themselves much faster, forming oily clumps which often plug the oil pore. When these pores get blocked, these clumps of dead cells and oil initially look white, but over time become oxidized to turn a black color (a blackhead, which most people wrongly believe to be dust/dirt in the pore).

The third contributor is the presence of a specific bacteria living inside this pore that can only survive if there is no oxygen. It eats away the clumps of the fat+dead cells and turns them into fatty acids that then irritate the skin and cause the inflammation and red patches you see on acne patients.

The main misconception is that scrubbing the face will clean it more, when this will actually worsen the situation -- rubbing hard and breaking the cells will only worsen the inflammation. You're better off dabbing and cleaning the area softly!

Proactiv works the same way as Clearasil and PanOxyl Aqua Gel. Its active agent is benzoyl peroxide, which releases oxygen into the area and thus kills the bacteria as oxygen is deadly to it. Many of those brands are all the same thing, just different packaging.

so what do you recommend?

Back in highschool I had acne for 4 years. I tried neutrigena, proactive, ointments/creams but nothing worked. Went through 2 cycles of accutane and have had the cleanest face ever. If you're running out of things to try, accutane is the shit. My doctor was the one who actually recommended it, as he was worried with acnes leaving more scars on my face (although I wasn't popping them). Just make sure your doctor looks at your blood exams before, during and after the cycle.

There isn't any one agent that we can recommend to everyone, but rather a tailored response which will be more or less efficient in different people. On the whole, we'd rather use topical applications at first, rather than ingested drugs. This is because eating something goes into your entire body system and can cause possible side effects...

The usual treatment is skin applied gels (benzoyl peroxide - aka proactiv aka clindoxyl gel aka clearasil etc etc, all exact same shit but different companies). All it is is oxygen which kill the bacteria that makes the said irritant fatty acids that ur body reacts to. Another agent possibly recommended at the same time is salicylic acid, which is an agent that breaks down those cell clumps, and would help to get more of the benzoyl peroxide into the pore and more effectively kill the bacteria. Obviously you want to kill all of it so you don't have any left to cause inflammation.

If this doesn't work, you will need a doctor's prescription. This can include ingested antibiotics like tetra, erythro, or mino. These will then also kill the pore embedded bacteria but may also kill some good bacteria in your gut too, possibly affecting vitamin absorption levels or diarrhea. Other agents include retinoic acid, which increases the amount of pore skin cell shedding to cause increased debris clearance from the clogged pore, and if this class of action doesn't work, we go to ingested versions. These agents are usually given topically in gel or cream, but the ingested version is called Accutane, and this can work very effectively. A negative of this though (going back to my earlier comment about ingested crap possibly giving side effects) is that it has been well documented that Accutane can cause depressive thoughts, sudden violence, and other mental side effects. It is actually banned in several European countries, and Roche, the firm that made it, is under several major class action law suits from people who've committed suicide etc. This is a small minority however, and it works very well for many people. One of my own friends' gfs however went psycho from using it years ago, locking herself in the washroom and threatening suicide until the RCMP came and broke the door down.

Lastly, hormone therapy agents suppress the dihydrotestosterone levels in your body, which as previously mentioned control the size and output levels of the sebum glands in the pores. Messing with ur hormones has a whole bunch of possible effects.

Studies haven't conclusively labelled oily food as a contributor, but the books say to eat more greens (good diet). Stress should worsen it though.