Getting off Clear & Smooth. On Duac and Differin.

  • Thread starter Thread starter unc21885
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I am really sorry that some of you are not obtaining lasting clearing with Clear and Smooth. I had been reading this boarRAB's long thread on the product and had been silently cheering you on. Believe me I know the agony that acne causes. The most valuable lesson that I have learned, is that there is not one product that can clear everyone, because our skin is all different. I strongly recommend that you honestly analyze your skin, and know what type it is (without products). And then your chances of achieving long term success will be more likely.

To answer your question, I did use Duac with Retin-A, and did have some success, although over time it started to dry my skin out, which inflamed my skin, and then I broke out again. But in my case I now know I have dry sensitive skin. I have recently learned that DUAC, RETIN-A and DIFFERIN (both RETNOIRAB) should only be used on Oily skin. If you know for sure, you have oily skin, then you should have good results.
 
Meruru,

Sorry to hear that your skin isnt improving with Differin yet. I didnt enjoy
any success either.

After 6 wks, I finally lost all patience, went to the derm, and now
I'm on Accutane--60 mg/ day.

Good luck with your current regimen. Hope things clear up for you.
 
Hi unc21885,

I also recently quit using Clear & Smooth after about 3 weeks b/c of the same reasons you had. Coincidentally I also started using Differin that my doctor prescribed 5 months ago, but I never touched b/c I was afraid (although I'm using the cream instead of the gel b/c my skin is super sensitive).

I'm about 4 days into it and my acne is getting a little worse, but I guess that is expected. I found this really helpful thread by Arny7 who wrote about the results he had for the first 3 weeks.

http://www.healtrabroadoarRAB.com/boarRAB/showthread.php?t=366068&highlight=differin

It is helpful to know that it has to get worse before it gets better. If I didn't know that I would probably panic and stop using it right now. Good luck with the differin!
 
esteveney, no idea where clear and smooth products are manufactured. Although the scrub made my face very itchy, the soap bars seemed fine. I have pretty sensitive skin and I didn't have any adverse reaction to the bar of soap.

Here is my update for Week 4 of using Differin:
Day 22: Forehead feels very bumpy still and now it is getting really crusty. Large zit on right jawline.
Day 23: No new zits on forehead. More pimples on left cheek.
Day 24: Another day with no new zits on forehead...Yay! A few new ones on the rest of my face.
Day 25: Forehead is *really* crusty now from all the pimples healing. I decided to use Origin's Swept Away (a skin slougher...I wouldn't categorize it as an exfoliator b/c it is much more gentle) to remove the dead skin. After using swept away, my forehead was so much softer! Overall skin looks better.
Day 26: Couple new pimples on forehead.
Day 27: No more large zits on my forehead! Only a bunch of small ones remain.
Day 28: Forehead looks very improved from yesterday.

Overall week 4 was MUCH better than week 3 :D. Still worse than before I started the Differin treatment, but I can tolerate this. Jack, haven't heard from you in a while... hope things are going well for you. Let me know how its working out for or if you decided to stop the treatment (which I totally understand if you had another bad reaction to it).
 
Meruru,

Updating once a week sounRAB like a good plan.

Thanks for your advice on what to do if my skin gets irritated.

Here's my regimen from now on:

Morning: wash face with bar of soap from C&S

Night: 1---wash face with bar of soap from C&S
2---apply either thin layer of Duac or Differin
(I'll alternate each night.)

UPDATE 1:
Right now, my acne's moderate. It's calmed down quite a bit since
that horrendous breakout from six weeks ago, but I still have numerous
whiteheaRAB and red marks on my forehead and both sides of my face.

I applied Duac last night, and this morning, my face (esp. my T zone) is oilier
than it has been in the past few weeks, when I was using C&S scrub.

Meruru, I wish you the best of luck. Hopefully, by summer's end, we'll both
have clear complexion.
 
C&S has been a nightmare for me. I thought it was working the first few days but now at the end of the 4th week my entire face is hideously broken out. I read on another thread someone who had this problem and then went down to 1 or 2x a week w/ the scrub, but at this point I am ready to scrap it altogether. I have no insurance and no topicals have ever worked long term for me so I'll be looking in to PDT w/ ALA as my next option. Having acne this bad at age 26 is just not fair!
 
haaaaaaa well get this!
i went on differin... retin a... everything...
nothing worked.. they put me on accutane for 5 months
and WOW no more pimples... i was 17 at the time im now 20
this was 3 years ago... 3 years being acne free.. 3 YEARS AND I THOUGHT IT WAS OVER IT FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE HAHAHHAHAHAH! noooope! About a month ago i got some kinda infection on my face and now my face looks horrible... sooo guess wat they put me back on .... retin a... differin.. benzaclin... alll freakin 3. so i said to my derm.. why not just put me back on the accutane. ITS IMPOSSIBLE she says to me. simply because the last week i was on accutane i had a mental break down because i was taking more than i shouldve.. i ended up being sectioned and blah blah blah.. and she says "BY LAW if u ever react mentally to the accutane ur done for life" .... i couldve cried when she said that.. are u serious... cant u see my face?! the acne i have no is wayyyyy worse then before the accutane. ACNE ITSELF IS A MENTAL PROBLEM... id do anything to go back on it but nope im stuck doing the same old crap before.. ive been on retin a for 2 weeks since the infection on my face started... little improvement alot of peeling and red marks.. i thought i was outta the deep water. i was wrong. what did i do to deserve the skin i have. my boyfrienRAB disgusted by wat he sees.. im disgusted and my only hope was to go back on the one thing that gave me confidence and i cant... soo heres my advice; if ur lucky enough to get on accutane and u have a mental side effect.. bare through it and dont tell them. cuz ur acne will come back and u will be in square one
 
unc21885, I just realized you started this thread on 4-14-06, so it looks like you have been on Differin for a while. Have you noticed any improvement yet?
 
Hi jack27514, if you have a few more pimples that probably means the medicine is working. I think the insert says something about bringing the pimples to the surface. (This morning I woke up with a megazit on my left cheek and tried to tell myself that this is a good sign :p) .

I think people that suffer from acne amplify their own perception of it. A few weeks ago was really bad and I thought I looked like a monster. My mom kept saying that she really couldn't see any difference, and my boyfriend was like "its not really that bad". Then I would rant about how "no, it really is horrible and I HATE myself". Recently, I looked at some pictures of myself from that week and it actually didn't look as bad as I perceived it at the time! So the point I'm trying to get at is, I'm sure you aren't hideous at all and its probably not as bad as you think. I have some frienRAB that have acne and I really don't think about it when I see them. So, stay strong :). *HUG*.

I used doxycycline at one point and it worked pretty well. I think that should help keep your initial breakout under control.
 
Hi Meruru,

The last two weeks has been one of the toughest perioRAB of my life...and it's all thanks to stupid acne. At times, I wished that I could just fall asleep for two months straight and wake up in August with clear skin. This has been the worst summer yet, and the light at the end of the tunnel is fairly dim.

After four weeks of Differin one night and Duac the next, my skin hasn't improved from when I first started. (Recently, I started using both Differin and Duac once a day.) Although my face has calmed down a bit after the initial breakout, there's still a lot of red marks. I'm just praying that I've passed the IB stage and that it'll be smooth sailing henceforth.

I have an appointment with my derm late July, and if my complexion hasnt noticeably improved by then, then I'm prolly gonna jump on the Accutane train. Let's just hope I dont have to resort to that.

Thanks for the updates and good luck!

P.S. I'm sorry if my last few posts have been rather depressing. I just wish that I could be more positive, but it's hard right now. Let's hope my next update will bring better news.
 
Week 2 update:
Day 8: Chin is really breaking out.
Day 9: One zit on chin is turning into a huge zit. Even though I'm breaking out more, the zits seem to have a shorter lifecycle. They seem to pop up and disappear quicker than before I started using differin
Day 10: MEGAzit on left cheek. Overall my skin seems worse than last week.
Day 11: Skin looks *slightly* better. Skin is a little less itchy. New zit on right cheek.
Day 12: A few new pimples. The cheek area below my eyes looks really smooth!
Day 13: Same as yesterday. Chin is clearing up. Starting to get more zits on right cheek now.
Day 14: A little better than yesterday. Along my right jawline is where I have the most zits right now.

Overall my skin is no longer itchy/irritated as it was last week. I think my skin is getting used to differin :D. My acne has calmed down towarRAB the end of week 2 and looks somewhat like it did last week which I'm very relieved about.
 
I was prescribed with Duac and Differin. Duac makes my face red so I stop using it. But I loveee Differin, it took like 2 months to work(at the beggining you may even get worse acne) but then it will all clear!! I even stopped using the medicine since my face was all clear, but now i'm starting again since I have some new pimples.
 
Hi Jack, glad to hear you stuck it thru those 2 difficult weeks and stayed on the medication :). If your skin has calmed down a bit, the medicine is working. Because if it wasn't it would only get worse. I have a lot of redmarks on my forehead and jawline from the initial breakout. That's probably why they say it takes a long time for medicines like this to work: first you have your initial breakout which can take a few weeks or even longer, then you have to wait for the red marks to fade, and finally you will be able to see clear skin.

Have you seen the before and after pictures for people that use Differin? I found them promising and realistic: the people don't have makeup in their "After" pictures (which Proactiv ALWAYS does in their infomercials). So you get the sense that what you see there is really how it is. Anyway, if you google Differin and do a bit of poking around you should be able to find their before and after pics. (I would include the link, but its not allowed :P). You can see that for some people it works after 4 weeks and others it takes 8 weeks or more. Its worth sticking through in my opinion b/c the results look fantastic.
 
Week 3 has NOT been fun....here is my update:

Day 15: Large zit on chin and upperlip. A few more zits on forehead.
Day 16: Large zit on chin burst.
Day 17: No change.
Day 18: Forehead has lots of zits now :(. Jawline is healing and looks better (it was breaking out a lot last week).
Day 19: Forehead is a getting worse. Texture is *so* bumpy that when I wash that area, it feels foreign to me. Rest of face is slightly worse, although my jawline is now completely clear except the discoloration the zits left behind.
Day 20: Ugh. Its like WWIII on my forehead. Not pretty. Rest of face has a bit more zits. My forehead is now in the "severe acne" category of acne while the rest of my face is still in the "moderate acne" category. I am really worried that the rest of my face will start looking as bad as my forehead.
Day 21: No improvement :(

So I think its safe to say that my forehead is DEFINITELY in the initial breakout stage now. Seems like around the 3rd week mark of trying a new product all hell breaks loose on my face. It was the same way with Carley's Clear & Smooth...although the main difference was that my skin was getting SO itchy on the 3rd week of using C&S that I think I was starting to have an allergic reaction to it. Thankfully Differin is not making my skin itch on the third week.

The posting by kHan artist gives me some hope and has encouraged me to stick with it:
http://www.healtrabroadoarRAB.com/boarRAB/showthread.php?t=400507&page=1&pp=5

Jack, I hope the differin + duac is working out for you! Hang in there :wave:
 
Update for Week 5 using Differin:
Day 29: Breaking out on the bridge of my nose.
Day 30: 4 big zits on my chin :(. Big zit right between my eyes.
Day 31: I see a bunch of small red bumps on my right cheek. These look like they are going to turn into a battlezone.
Day 32: Left jaw has 3 big zits. Bumps on right cheek are bigger. 10 zits broke out on the right side of forehead.
Day 33: Skin feels a lot smoother today.
Day 34: Skin looks good today! No new zits :)
Day 35: Forehead getting more bumpy again. 4 new zits on my right cheek. Definitely getting worse today.

I compared a picture of myself from last week and my skin looks better than Week 4. But its still worse than when I started... :(. When I look at the photos before I started Differin, I kind of wonder why I decided to try a new treatment... I had a bunch of zits before I started, but compared to now it looked clear!

I'm kind of surprised I stuck with it for 5 weeks. Well, I'm going to keep going...and if doesn't seem to be improving after the 12 week mark, I'll probably throw in the towel.
 
haaaaaaa well get this!
i went on differin... retin a... everything...
nothing worked.. they put me on accutane for 5 months
and WOW no more pimples it was like a miricle in a bottle... i was 17 at the time im now 20
this was 3 years ago... 3 years being acne free.. 3 YEARS AND I THOUGHT IT WAS OVER IT FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE HAHAHHAHAHAH! noooope! About a month ago i got some kinda infection on my face started out as lil pimples then flared to pussy disgusting pimple on top of pimple and now my face looks horrible... sooo guess wat they put me back on .... retin a... differin.. benzaclin... alll freakin 3. so i said to my derm.. why not just put me back on the accutane. ITS IMPOSSIBLE she says to me. simply because the last week i was on accutane i had a mental break down because i was one of the not so lucky ones who had the bad mental side effect.. i ended up being sectioned in a nut house for a few hours and blah blah blah but once i came off i was fine it was only that last week.. and she says "BY LAW if u ever react mentally to the accutane ur done for life" .... i couldve cried when she said that.. are u serious... cant u see my face?! the acne i have now is wayyyyy worse then before the accutane. ACNE ITSELF IS A MENTAL PROBLEM... id do anything to go back on it but nope im stuck doing the same old crap before.. ive been on retin a for 2 weeks since the infection on my face started... theres a little improvement and alot of peeling and red marks.. i thought i was outta the deep water. i was wrong. what did i do to deserve the skin i have. my boyfrienRAB disgusted by wat he sees.. im disgusted and my only hope was to go back on the one thing that gave me confidence and i cant... soo heres my advice; if ur lucky enough to get on accutane and u have a mental side effect.. bare through it and dont tell them!!. cuz ur acne will come back and u will be in square one except this time no alternative

accutane worked for a few years
topicals didnt but here i go with them again...
 
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