Acne Making me so Depressed!

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Anthony312

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Am I the only one here? My acne is making me so depressed, I just want to give up sometimes.

It's so unfair because it is the one medical condition that seems like it can't be cured. If I get the flu I know that I should rest up and maybe take some antibiotics, and after a few days it will go away. But with acne it is this never ending problem that won't go away.

I've been dealing with acne for ten years now, three of them were severe, the last three have been moderate to serious. I'm 25 now and I don't know what to do!

I feel so tired of this. I take medications, I wash with only the best products, I apply topical medications and only the best lotions. I do so many things, and it never goes away. Whats more I feel so helpless because it goes in cycles which I cannot control.

Two weeks will pass and my acne will be getting better, it seems to be healing, and then suddenly I will have a month of hell, with no warning where I have new break-outs every other day!

I want to ask, why have I been afflicted like this? I know people who smoke drink and have very poor eating habits who have great skin. I know people who take really bad care of themselves and still look great. But for me I try so hard to do the right things, I eat more fruit for instance, than most people I know. But yet it is still here, every mornig I have to look at it......
 
Get facials!! I'm serious after the first 24 hrs ur like WOW cuz ur skin looks so good. ur facialist will also recommend products that are good for YOUR skin since obviously theyve seen and done stuff to it. its really the best way
- Livi
 
o well i guess my skin is pretty good then (yay) cuz it makes my skin look so much better. but you can get acne facials (i dont tho) i guess. the extraction thing is the only thing that hurts in case your worried, but that only takes a couple minutes @ least 4 me
 
I really don't think so, at least in my case. It seems to be totally seperate for me.

I will go weeks and weeks where I can just ignore the acne and try to look at the bright side and all that. But even when I am feeling very good, the acne persists.

I can tell you an experience I just had recently. My acne was doing very well for a few days a couple months back. I met this really nice girl at a party through a friend and we talked, and exchanged nurabers and everything. I was feeling great all week, but when we met up for our first date it was totally different. My acne was really bad that day, for no apparent reason, and the date went well, but lets just say she wants to be frienRAB now. Nothing changed except for my skin condition.

I know they say you should look for someone who can look past it towarRAB the real you, but that is not the way it works. When you buy a new car, why would you choose one that has nicks and scratches all over, when you could get a good looking one?

I am normally a very stable person, but when my acne starts to flair up it can really get to me. Like I said, it is jsut overwhelming sometimes, and yes I do cry occasionally.
 
I know exactly how you are feeling colleenredmond because i am an identical sufferer too. I have had cystic acne on my back, shoulder, chest and neck for nearly 5 years. It started to worsen during the beginging of my university studies and have gone through drugs to try and stop it. I have scarring left which will never get treated because i am dark in skin tone. Getting cystic acne and scarring has caused me to get depressed severely with me being completely unmotivated, sleeping alot and having suicidal thoughts. I think sometimes that i am being stupid and that several other people suffer from worse problems. But when you get depressed and set your mind in a negative state you cannot free your self from that dark, drowning feeling. I try to not let it get to me but it becomes mentally uncontrollable especially when a cyst appears somewhere visible for others to see. I would be grateful for any advise besides the usual.
 
Surround yourself with people who love you and just get through this. I'm going through it right now, cystic acne along my jawline and on my neck. I have random crying spells and feelings of "whatever, I'm hopeless" but you have to fight through it. Music has helped me through some really dark times as has exercising. god save us.
 
I am going to be 25 in one month and YAY got one cyst on my face three old ones going away, 25 clogged pores, and one zit popping up as we speak. JESUS DOES ACNE GO AWAY!!!. I have cried so many times over this. Go to bed with fear in my mind about what I will look like in the morning. I always have something on my face that is sore to touch. I see a derm and have tired so much. The only way my skin is clear is by using stuff that torches my face and gives me blisters and raw skin. I have tries three forms of antibiotics and have been on them for years, dry ice treatments that made my skin bleed, tried the picking at everything in sight for years and that caused scarring, tried glycolic acid, BHA, acne surgery on cysts (what a great feeling having a doctor take a knife to your face, great for your self esteem), benzoyl peroxide up to 15%, novacet, benzaclin, benzamycin, glycolic peels, facials once a week (which never helped me at all and those products they endorse SUCK for skin as bad as mine),microdermabrasion , tazorac, or corabinations of the things above. Had some time in which my skin was undercontrol but my skin was in pain from irritation with blisters, peeling skin, scaling, burning which kept me up at night, and dryness that made me bleed. Had a year here now that I didn't really leave the house and had no job cause I was so erabarassed about my acne. Thought of suicide at times as well but my loved ones keep me ticking. It is my depression that is making me and docs scared about accutane with me. Allready have been in hospital due to the depression acne has caused me. So when you say you are depressed, I UNDERSTAND. I understand how it goes, trying to cover each mirror in the house so you can't see yourself cause each time you want to cry. I know how it feels to look down and HOPE noone sees you. No one understand the physical an emotional pain of severe acne. If you have cystic acne then you will understand my pain.
 
i know how u feel colleen.
when a few years ago, i had bad cystic acne. there was nothing i could do. i wake up in the morning 3 new painful cysts. then come back form skool, 3 more. in total 6 big inflameed cysts a day. to top it off they all leave big bad scars. i understand that sense of hopelessness that feeling of my heart just sinking everytime i catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. i had nothing to look forward to. all i did was homework.
looking back, those days are the worst time of my life. but believe me, colleen
it does get better.

r u on any medication now?
i pray and hope u'll be alrite
 
I am so depressed too! I feel like crying right now...actually I am. I went to get my Rx's filled (to battle this stupid acne) and ran into my ex-boyfriend (I'm sure he was thinking, "uugh, I dated her," I had clear skin when we were together). I couldn't get out of there fast enough...I feel I look so gross, and I am so unhappy with my appearance, everything would be fine if I could just have clear skin. Then, I feel completely lost because I am starving and I am afraid to eat ANYTHING for fear that it might make me breakout. I am just tired of the fight....all I want is clear skin.
 
Facials are a bit too erabarrassing in my view cos the staff stare and deal with your face.

Anthony, I feel for ya. I am 25 too, and I honestly would prefer very sharp pains every now and then than the constant battle of acne. The psychological pain of acne is so horrible - I break out in sweats sometimes. WorRAB can't describe how horrible acne is.

AA
 
I am currently on Benzaclin, SAL AC wash, yasmin, and erthromycin. My skin broke out bad intially with yasmin and it is getting better from 6-9 cyst per month to now I got only one but they take FOREVER AND THEY SCAR. Plus they hurt so much. I have been on antibioitcs for such a long time and changed three times due to resistance. I can no longer take minocycline, and tetracycline. All in all, I have been off and on antibioitics for over three years this being my longest stretch of a year and a half. The suckiest thing is that I know of a corabination that works well but my skin can not tolerate it. People say my skin is looking better but I constantly have a cyst on my face that is healing. I used to pick like crazy and have scars galore. Just cystic acne is so depressing and disturbing. THEY JUST PLAIN HURT. It is going to be 8 years of this C#$!). So yeah I AM SICK OF IT. True those 8 years I had good times and had it under control but all of a sudden BAM BAD. I also got facial hair, body hair, and other signs of PCS. So that is why I started on the yasmin. It is sad that something like acne can do such harm when you really think about it, it is silly to be depressed about it, but the only people who can relate to me is people with cystic acne. See with "normal zits" you can just wait till they have this huge head and use an extractor on them or wait till they come out on their own, with cystic weeks pass by and they are not gone yet. And when the bump is gone sometimes they finally surfacw with blood and yucky stuff that is just so much and leave a huge whole. But regardless they scar. The pain is unbearable at times when you get more then one or so. See, I have stubborn acne but not horrible. And if I search for another derm, I could go on accutane but I am not horrible, it just won't go away. I understand and agree with my derm about accutane that it should not be just prescribed like crazy. However, there are times that if I get more then a few cyst I will consider it. Cause just one on your face makes you depressed and uncomfortable up the ying yang.
 
Hey, i know how difficult it is but as ITmike said we have to be a little strong and get through this nightmare. Recently i talked to someone about the problem in my university councilling department and i felt a little better. I also have a girlfriend who is cool about it but i still cant take off my tshirt in front of her. This is a mental challenge but we just hope for the best.
 
The most cyst I have ever had on my face was seven and all of them were on my jawline. This was month two of the yasmin and I remeraber I could not sleep on my sides and felt like my teeth were pulled or something. If the time comes I get them all over, I know that I could not tolerate the pain and would consider the acctutane. But it's getting better but I constatly fear what if that blackhead/whitehead turns into a cyst? I have almost a cystaphobia now but don't dare pick anymore. I went to see a therapist for almost 6 months to keep me from picking and WHIPPEE. have not picked in almost 5 months. Well I do use an extractor on the DUDE THIS HAS SUCH A HEAD. Cause I was not picking NADA and every morning or so after a shower puss would be pouring out of a zit all over my face GROSS GROSS GROSS. But still, the scars. :(. I wakep fearing if I have a breakout. I go to bed touching my bumps and clogged pores hoping they won't turn into this huge nasty thingie. ACNE IS HORRIBLE and I pray that it continues to get better to a point that I can feel pretty and confident and don't have pain anymore. The funny thing is that I have so much scarring that if I have a new scar it just blenRAB to the rest of my face so you don't notice. THe scarring doesn't bug me right now. What bugs me is the cyst.
 
Thanks colleenredmond, it feels good just to know that I'm not the only one. Of course rationally I know I'm not the only one, but emotionally I feel so isolated sometimes in regarRAB to acne.

Everyone can give me great advice, but actually having it is a very unique experience.

I have a good job right now, but I just want to quit too. I am seriously thinking about moving back in with my parents. I want to go hide sometimes, but I have to deal with this every waking day.

The only positive thing I can say is that I did have a very good experience with Accutane. I want to go on it again soon, but my derm is stalling and stalling. She won't let me start until she has tried everything else first! I've tried everything, I tell her, but nothing ever truly works as accutane did!
 
Colleen,

Have you ever thought that the depression is what is initially causing your acne and not your acne initially causing your depression?

You may find treating the depression will cure your acne and stop the self-feeding cycle. Acne is caused mechanically from hormones but when your hypothalamus is overworked consistantly (which is what happens with depression), your hypothalamus (an area of the brain) can't do it's job properly in regulating the pituitary gland. One of the main jobs of the hypothalamus is regulating and balancing hormones.
 
I empathize with all of you. I had acne really bad throughout my teens and early twenties and I know first hand how demoralizing it can be. Low self esteem, depression, suicidal thoughts, no dates, teasing . . . yup I know what that's like =\

I'm 29 now and still deal with acne however I'm able to get it under control. I saw a dermatologist outside of my HMO (because I didn't want to wait 3 f'ing months to see one) and she prescribed me Minocyclin, Tazorac, and Benzaclin. I use the above along with Neutrogena Fresh Foaming Cleanser which you can get over the counter. It's definately not a cure but it's a helluva lot better than nothing and it does control flareups. My biggest gripe is I burn easily during the summer months and the Benzaclin can make my skin irratated but if that happens I'll back off of the Benazaclin for a few days or so.

Avoiding caffeine and staying hydrated works reasonably well. I notice my skin starts to look like crap after drinking a coke so I tend to avoid that and drink water instead. Unfortunately water is boring :}

Acne is such a god damn curse :(
 
colleen.......spironlatone should work great for you.at least 100 mgs a day will get rid of your body hair and acne.it might take up to a year or more for the body hair to go away.then you might want to get a thermage after spironlatone has cleared your skin.eat a low carb diet and drink lots of water.if a thermage or smootrabroadeam laser dont remove all your scars u might think of using a filler.radiance is a great filler and can last 5 to 6 years.it is also good for making your lips fuller.botox,collegen,fat,silikon,restylin and articoll are more fillers with articoll being used in canada.see if you can take yasmin and spiro at the same time.im not a girl so i dont know about this but im learning because im on spiro.i had to put up with acne for 27 years so i know how you feel.im not cured....im only controlling my skin.i dont know what you look like but if you want to be beautiful you can with all the plastic surgery out there today.canada is a good place to go if you really feel like you need cosmedic surgery after your acne has cleared.your only 25 and with so many options out there dont give up.you might have to spend some dollars....oh if you live in orange county you might wanna bum some bucks off of gwen stephini,lol.body hair and acne= androgens and you are producing too much testosterone.you also might want to check out sweet jade 1 posts also.see ya :wave: ps also check out hylaronic acid takin orally called injuv.you have access to the internet.do some research on your acne and what you can do about it.
 
This is a constant battle for me. One day i'm so clear and i feel so confident, then i get a zit and feel totally destroy. The worst part is not having anyone to talk to about it. i'm so depressed right now.:(
 
its genetics
theres nothing u can do about it
my mom and dad has acne
and now me and my sister has acne.

have u tried benzamycin and stievamycin and tetracycline
when my acne was real bad
i use these 3
benz in morning
stivamycin at night
and tetracycline 2 times a day

it helped alot.
 
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