Those close to me would know that I have suffered with all kinds of different acne since I was about nine years old. My acne, you see, comes and goes in cycles, always. At the moment, my face is semi-clear, I get the occasional spot on my cheek about once a month. My neck and decolletage, however, are a very different story. For some reason, over the years, my acne seems to travel south. During my younger years, my forehead was the target, then my nose, cheeks, jawline, and now neck and chest areas. I really don't know why this is, my guess is hormonal induced. For the past two years, my hormones have been all over the place.
Let me go back in time, to when I first started having serious problems with my skin. I was about 13 years old, I had started menstruating a year or two previous to that, and my menstrual cycle, since it started, had been a horrendous mess. Subsequently, my acne got worse. My pediatrician, at the time, recommended several prescription strength topical creams, one that comes to mind is Benzamycin, I really liked it for such a long time, I remember I refilled that prescription on several occasions! However, it stopped working.
By this time, I was about 14 years old, had just started high school, and my pediatrician recommended I go on birth control to help with my menstrual cycle, which was still highly irregular, and for my acne, which had gotten worse. For this, I will be forever grateful with my Mom, she was apprehensive at first, as would be any mother in her position, I believe, but she agreed. So on I went with Ortho-Evra patch, and within the first month of using it my skin cleared up dramatically! I was feeling more confident in my skin, and I did forget to mention this, but at the time I had never worn makeup, and wouldn't for at least three more years with the exception of little mascara, and lip gloss.
Fast forward to 17 years of age, graduated high school, beautiful clear skin, still on Ortho-Evra, highly regular menstrual cycles, and everything just beautiful. However, few months after graduation, I stopped Ortho-Evra because I no longer had health insurance. My skin remained clear until I was about 22 or 23 years old, that period of my life is quite blurry, and my menstrual cycle was still regular. After that age, I began getting very big, irritated, pustules on my cheeks. At first, I thought it was because of all the stress I was going through, and perhaps environmental factors. I had just transferred universities, had just switched jobs to an internal lab at a nut processing company where my job was to test for food pathogens. My lab, was always very hot, so I was always sweaty, and the environment was oily, so my face was oily, and we weren't allowed to bring any personal items with us, at any time, so that meant no blotting sheets, or facial cleanser, or anything like that. Within two months of working there, my face went psycho, I started breaking out all around my cheeks, I stopped wearing makeup, except for mascara, I started getting regular facials, I cleansed my skin morning and night, started using specialized products, and nothing was helping. In May, after eight months of suffering with hideous skin, I quit my job because I was convinced that my skin issues were due to the hot oily conditions of my lab.
Soon after I stopped working there, I went on vacation to Mazatlan where it is also very hot and humid and was there for about a month, by the end of July, my skin looked dramatically different. I obviously had scarring, but it was clear, radiant, and all around healthy. In January, I started my new job, as a receptionist at a day spa, and my acne was creeping back. The owner spoke to me about clearing up my acne, she said that as the first face people see at the spa, I should probably look into achieving pretty skin. I knew exactly what she meant, but I couldn't help but feel a little bit offended. However, she kindly offered a free facial service with the best facialist at the spa, which I readily took advantage of. The facialist recommended I start doing regular chemical peels, and follow a strict morning and night skin care routine. I did as I was told, and within three months I could see my old skin come back, the scarring was fading dramatically, I wasn't getting new breakouts, and overall was very happy with the results.
Fast forward to today, I am currently 25 years old, and now my hormones are more out of whack than ever before. I can't remember when was my last menstrual cycle, I went on birth control last October, but it only aggravated my acne, so I stopped. It seems that my acne has gone from my cheeks to my jawline, neck and chest these past two weeks. I haven't really seen any big menacing spots on my cheeks in the past several months, so I suppose that is good. I only get small white heads on my cheekbones, which I attribute to the heat. The pimples on my jawline, neck and chest are very peculiar, they remind me of allergies, almost, they are prominent skin colored, with a red base, they don't hurt or anything, so I just let them be. I do, however, have lots of scarring on my cheeks, which is something that I continually work on.
I don't know how this turned out to be a hormones post, but I hope you get the gist of it. I just really wanted to share my experience with acne, and if you have similar experience, I would love to hear from you. Next post is going to be about my current skin care routine. It is something that will apply to every skin type, I promise.
Much love,
-Mireya G.
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