Heyyy everyone! Today I am talking about how I cleared my cystic and hormonal acne, my experience with accutane and my autoimmune allergic reaction to minocycline. This video has been a long time coming; I have been trying to film this acne journey video and do it justice and hopefully that is what I have done. Feel free to ask me questions if you have any, I’m an open book when it comes to my acne journey! 💛
Hi guys welcome back to my channel if you’re new here my name is catherine and for today’s video i’m talking about my hormonal acne journey so this has been a video i’ve kind of put off for a while because it’s so extensive it’s covering many years and it’s just like there were a lot of factors a lot of things that were issues i’ve written up like five different
Like layouts of how i’m gonna talk about this but today i just kind of figured i’d just sit down and try to film it so hopefully i do it justice hopefully i don’t forget anything and yeah hopefully this goes well alright just to kind of give you some backstory when i was younger i was always taught to wash my face and i would use baby soap and i would use like a
Wet rag and i’d be very aggressively like rubbing my face so that was probably not the best idea for me to do that but i didn’t know any better i was very young then my mom started giving me proactive so that’s a type of skin care product and i’ve heard not so great things about it but that was the first kind of introduction to skincare i had because my mom used
That so at this point i think i might have been 12 years old and i really didn’t have much acne i was using the proactive to just kind of like have something to do with my skin but as i started going into high school i realized that i was getting more acne and so i asked my mom if we could go to a dermatologist so we didn’t really do much research we just went to
A local dermatologist so once i got there the dermatologist gave me a few different topicals i definitely use cerave i think i use clean and clear and maybe a little bit of cetaphil i didn’t really use that i was more into the survey but the major thing that she changed was she put me on minocycline and if you don’t know what metacycline is it’s an antibiotic that
Treats like infections and it really helps acne apparently so i was put on that and i didn’t think anything of it my mom didn’t and we just were following what the dermatologist told us to do this didn’t really clear my acne it just like minimized it i still had lots of little bumps on my forehead and i had some breakouts like on my cheeks so that was 2016 when i
Was first in high school then 2018 around the start of my junior year i was hiking and i started to feel a lot of pain in my feet so i had gone to the doctor and she kind of assumed it was achilles tendinitis so i wasn’t allowed to do any kind of physical activity and so i just kind of had to rest meanwhile my acne was still the same it wasn’t changing but as the
Months went by i started to get more issues happening with my body i started to have pain in my knees and my elbows and my wrists and soon enough i was in so much daily constant pain that was so excruciating and the only way i can describe it is think of when you are sick and your body is very fragile and sensitive and achy and times that by 10. that’s kind of
The only way i could try to explain it to people i couldn’t like press down on a soap dispenser i couldn’t open water bottles i couldn’t sit down without so much pain i slept with my feet up on like five pillows and ice packs all on my feet because my ankles had swollen up so much and yeah i was just in so much pain and i bet you’re thinking right now this has
Nothing to do with an acne journey story it does in my case so we had gone to my primary care doctor and she was like you know what i don’t know what’s going on like all these things are just piling up on each other so i’ll refer you to a rheumatologist just to see what they think so i went to the rheumatologist and she was amazing she was so good and when i first
Got there she was asking me about kind of like the history of my health kind of what i had been doing and she had asked me what medications i was taking so i listed off the other medications i was taking and then i told her menocycline and she was like okay wait hold on menocycline i was like yeah i just take that for my acne and she knew what it was she knew it
Was a medication for acne and she had said you’re supposed to be on it for three months at a time and i was on it for 18 months so as you can guess my mom and i were very very confused and shocked my mom was more upset i was just in pain and i just wanted answers and i just wanted to be healed so it turned out that that was the issue and the rheumatologist said
That i had an autoimmune allergic reaction to the menocycline because if you know anything about antibiotics you’re not supposed to stay on them long term and being on them for that long really suppressed well it suppressed my acne but it also was taking such a big toll on my body and if you don’t know what an autoimmune allergic reaction is it’s when your cells
In your body attack your other healthy cells in your body so yeah painful that’s how that happened so after that rheumatologist appointment i had gone off the medication and we went straight to the dermatologist i was going to and my mom was not happy and i was just sitting there in so much pain and you’d think that dermatologist would know how long she should
Prescribe an antibiotic but she didn’t and that kind of led me to a lot of pain okay now transitioning back to my skin since i had gotten off of the menocycline that was suppressing all of my acne my skin broke out it was so bad it just covered my face i have photos of it and it was just so gross it looked gross and it just was so painful and it took a heavy
Toll on my mental state and just my confidence level and i’m not someone who wears makeup i’m not wearing any makeup right now at all and i don’t like the process of putting on makeup taking it off and wearing it and the way it looks so i went to school every day with my face looking like that and yeah it was hard and i sympathize with anyone who’s dealing with
That right now who’s clicked on this video to get some kind of possible answer and so yeah i know how you are feeling and even if your acne isn’t as bad as mine was it doesn’t matter because everyone is used to a certain normal with their skin and when it breaks out in any capacity it’s just difficult to deal with so yeah in those photos i developed severe severe
Cystic acne and it just covered my face it was never ending once my acne started it just grew and it was just such a hassle and such a pain to deal with and like yeah it was just really hard thinking back i think i did do a good job of blocking it out um both the pain in my body and also like my skin because i just like went where i needed to go in school and
I just kind of forgot about how painful it was the emotional toll of the acne was so much and it just like was hard to look at people because they wouldn’t be looking in my eyes they would be looking at my skin and i knew that no one found me attractive so my junior year any kind of dating possibilities went out the window it just yeah so that was difficult and i
Really actually just got closer to god in that situation because no one else could really help me with my pain or with my skin so i just kind of turned to god and i found a lot of peace in that so at this point my acne had grown so much and i told my mom i was like i need another dermatologist like we need to find someone so we found another doctor at a different
Dermatology office and i went in for my first like consultation and she said that i was a perfect candidate for accutane so i know that accutane is kind of controversial some people are like yes it helped me with my acne it’s just a miracle drug and then some people are very holistic and don’t like it because it is a very very strong medication but at this point
Anything sounded good to me because i was just dealing with it every day and i was tired of it so i decided to go on it but the thing is it has very dangerous side effects if you happen to get pregnant so you have to be on birth control for at least a month before you start accutane another month sounded so long but i had already been doing this for a while so i was
Like i can get through one month of not starting it yet so i had left that appointment she also gave me some topicals which i still use today they are just like my holy grail of skin care i went and grabbed them so this is my facial cleanser it’s the brand vanity cream it’s so gentle and it really feels like your skin is being cleaned but it’s also not stripping
Your face of all the oils and then this is the moisturizing lotion for sensitive skin so this is a really nice one they have a heavier like lotion but this moisturizer is very light and it’s very nice then i also got this it’s called altrino i’m currently almost out of it and then i have this dap zone gel it used to be called axone but it’s now called dap zone
It’s pretty much the same thing but she gave me those topicals and put me on the birth control and like sent me on my way and i did see some improvement just with the topicals and the birth control but it wasn’t fast working it wasn’t like quickly working to get my acne gone so once that month was up i went straight on accutane and i was on it for i think six
Months and by the end of the six months we had looked at my skin and realized that i wanted to go just an extra month just to make sure that i wasn’t gonna get any more acne so my journey with accutane was a good one i started and after the six months i didn’t have any breakouts i didn’t have any acne and i was just so relieved and in my case i just needed it
Because of the incredible effectiveness the only side effects i had were dry mouth dry eyes and everyone is sensitive to the sun when they are on accutane and i started getting more flakiness in my skin but that’s only in the winter and other than that i didn’t deal with any other side effects i could have potentially dealt with some muscle soreness or muscle
Achiness but i was still in pain from the whole autoimmune thing i was still recovering from that as well so i didn’t really notice a difference but yeah i remember my eyes being very sensitive and dry and my mouth was just like drier so for me i didn’t have any giant side effects that would have made my experience really horrible so i will show you a picture
Of my acne when it was at its peak when it was at its worst and then when i had finished accutane and it cleared my acne so that was how i got rid of my cystic acne i had to stay on birth control after i finished accutane at least for i think a few months but i chose to stay on birth control because i had noticed that when i went off of it for a brief period of
Time i had noticed some spots coming back on my face i just realized it was hormonal acne so i’ve been on birth control ever since and i’ve continued to use the topicals that the new dermatologist gave me and those have worked really well i really enjoy using those at the end of using the accutane i still had the redness in my skin and anytime i got hot it would
Flare up but i just needed time with that just time to let my skin heal and just have new skin turn over like just getting new layers of skin so yeah that’s kind of what got rid of the redness and i think the reason why i don’t have many scars is because i really moisturized my skin when i even had all of that acne on my face i just moisturized it because i didn’t
Want to deprive my skin of that and then it just turned to scars because i’ve heard that just keeping your skin moisturized is just helpful to not get scars so i just did that and i tried not to pick at them and it actually turned out that they would go away better if i didn’t pick at them it just took a couple more days and then it would just go away and i didn’t
Have to deal with it so that was also helpful just not like digging into my face and after all of that time like i don’t have the redness i used to have i don’t get the redness when i’m like exercising or if i’m hot and yeah it’s really nice to have clear skin and even though i didn’t use makeup before i like told myself i was not going to use makeup after either
Because my skin looks great so i’m not going to try to cover it up with makeup so i’ll just kind of give you a closer view of what my skin looks like right now so i do have a couple spots right here they’re going away this i still have some spots that come here and i’ve had it come here ever since like i had the issue with all of the skin stuff i had a lot right
Here and that’s like the worst place to get it um but yeah this is what my skin looks like um and i’m very blessed to have clear skin and i’m very appreciative and happy about where my skin is right now and how it looks so yeah i know that you guys can get there it just might take some time and some experimentation with different products to see which ones work
For you just for reference from the point my skin started to break out to now when it’s like very clear and there’s no redness and i have minimal scars it took five years so be patient with it i know that’s the worst thing to hear but it’s like anything like time heals all wounds so yeah that was a big thing for me but it was definitely worth it because i’m very
Confident in my skin now so yeah um that’s my acne journey it’s kind of specific with the whole autoimmune allergic reaction and then the flare-up breakout from all of the medications but if you have severe cystic acne or just any kind of level of acne in general i know how it feels and i sympathize with you i hope this was validating for you i hope it validated
Your feelings that you’re going through right now with all of the issues that might be going on with your skin and i just want everyone to know that even if your skin wasn’t as severe as mine it doesn’t matter like i said before any kind of change in what your normal was is difficult to deal with i’m not here to downplay anyone’s acne struggles i’m just here to
Share my story and i hope it was helpful or insightful and just know that my experiences with the topicals i use and the accutane are just that my experiences so take it with a grain of salt and just kind of focus on your specific skin situation and just talk with your doctor talk with a dermatologist to try to figure it out and yeah that’s all i have for today’s
Video i hope this video was good i hope i didn’t forget anything major i hope you guys like this video and if you did make sure you give it a thumbs up because it really supports my channel and make sure you subscribe so you can see when i upload next bye you
Transcribed from video
How I Cleared My Severe Cystic Acne /Accutane Experience / Minocycline Autoimmune Allergic Reaction! By Kathryn Grace
