Mmmmk. At 21, a college grad, and financially independent; I am a pizza face. I’m sure I’ve had acne since I was pubescent, but for some reason it didn’t seem that bad. I don’t remember my skin in middle school, which makes me think it wasn’t that pimply. In high school I got the occasional zit and drug store products were enough. College was me just flat out not caring, I was grumpy and emotionally unstable, and I’m sure people where more fixated on my bad attitude then on my skin. Now that I actually care about my appearance and, you know, want to act my age, my skin is terrible. Two weeks ago I had at least thee gross, painful, and extremely swollen pimples. I’m not sure if cystic is the right term, as ever website seems to have it’s own definition, but this was severe. I kept op with my face washing and used the strongest products I could buy, but nothing was working. Finally I said fuck it and did what I knew not to do, which was poke and prod till the zit did something. I consider myself extremely lucky that my skin doesn’t scar really badly because I think that could have left big pitted marks in my forehead. Enough grossness! At that point I called my sister’s dermatologist and set up an appointment for today.

I think I should point out that I don’t have poor hygiene. I wash my face twice a day, I tone, moisturize, etc. I do wear a little makeup, and I think Bare Minerals may have had something to do with my cystic acne (obviously I’ve stopped using that stuff). I really do my best to stick by this even when I’m at the gym or someone else’s house. So this trip to the dermatologist was basically out of frustration. I was doing everything right and I was still getting pizza face.

So this is what the dermatologist told me (and she was really quite nice about it too): The acne I have is most likely hormonal and this could also be the cause of my oily skin. I don’t have exceptionally sensitive skin so I have a few options available to me. The most obvious being balancing my hormones, with some kind of medication. OK I’m all for that! So I got a prescription for a diarrhetic that some how binds to the hormone that causes acne and expels it from your system. My other option was switching birth control pills, but the brand suggested doesn’t have a generic. She also suggested a topical treatment, Retin-A Micro, which I’m supposed to use at night. I’m not sure how this works, but it’s not an antibiotic so I’m down with it. I didn’t get the oral prescription filled today and I got some samples of the Retin-A so that all I’m using right now. I’m going to be very disappointed if I don’t wake up with dry peely skin tomorrow.

I’m hoping this doesn’t turn into a long quest for the perfect acne medicine. So many blogs I’ve read recently have gone on an on about how the author used x amount of products before seeing any results. Fingers are crossed.