STOP washing your face with soap and other crap like that.
Friends and now my son had suffer from acne, got them to stop using soaps and other irritants that dry your face and make your bidy send more fat to recover. Use plain water even when you shower, soap for the armpits etc. not for the face. The acne will diminish, the pimples will keep coming out if your diet is poor, lots of coke and fries and ice cream etc. try it for a month and just pop the pimples that you get after they are ripe and clean the spot with denatured alcohol. If you want no pimples eat some fruit and cut the greasy food. After I convinced my son to try it, it worked and the acne cleared up as well as a friend I had when I was 20. Now I don't get any pimples/acne just gray hairs.

well it prob a good idea to think about what you have done that day, for instance, if you work out or have sex, take a shower, if it was hot out and you did alot of sweating, take a shower before you get to sleep

Woah, that milk comment just clicked with me...

I've been out of the country for a month. Didn't drink one bit of milk. Didn't get one pimple.I get back, start eating cereal again (with MILK of course) and I'm getting minor break outs.

Goddamn you milk!

My dermatologist said that the longer your 'run' of acne is, the less chance there is of having to do a second cycle of it. Of course this is harder for some folks, as the side-effects can be pretty harsh sometimes. I've pretty much gotten used to them by now though, less than a month left, yeay!

Whoa, I stopped drinking milk for the last few days and my skin is really clearing up =D

Well i have no acne so im pretty lucky but dude i totaly sympothise with u its sucks i guess!

I agree with a lot of this stuff. play with your diet. trying skipping milk based products. try cutting down on your carbs. work-out so that you are sweating. the sweat will help to clean the skin but then take a nice shower and wash the dirt away. Basically, start eating better and working out more. Your skin is an organ like your brain or your liver, living a healthier lifestyle can only help it ou. Besides, even if it doesnt clear up the acne, you will feel better about yourself and start to be in better shape. That in itself might help you more than anything. Like a lot of things in life, stress and worrying too much about something can make a bad situation worse.

I am thirty and have had acne forever. It's gotten a lot better recently, but I am living a better life, eating much healthier and lighter (lots of fruits and vegetables) and working out all the time. Now that my skin has gotten better, I do have some scarring.

Eh, what are you going to do, though? be yourself and don't worry too much.

I have fought this battle for years, since i was 13... I'm 19 now and still fighting... THe only things that have worked for me is prescription Benzyol Peroxide 8% Cream (Brevoxl). I've been using it for 4 years now... For me personally, I have to keep my face dry dry, and the Benz. Perox. dries you out. I havent tried moistuirzing because that just seems to me to be feeding the fire. I was also on minocyline, it made it alot worse for me. It made my skin like... tough. It like got thicker, and therefore the pimples had a harder and harder time getting through, which made it alot worse.

One thing i"ve noticed for sure is that i get zits on my forehead if i use a hair gel like the blue "la looks" or some shit, the cheep gell, I started using whipped gell, from Loriel Paris or whatever, and it cleared my forehead, especially the area around my hairline of zits, i think the cheeper "LA Looks" or those brands make your skin nearby react.

I dont know what the solution is, I"m almost 20 and still looking for an answer. I put NO faith in dermatologists, I've gone to 3 diff. ones and everything they gave me made it worse. My advise is, if its an ongoing thing for you, start trying the different products out, keep a list of what you've tried. I'm going tomarrow to go pick a moisturizer to use, cause after the shower using the Brevoxl, my face is really stiff, very dry. Keep fighting. Eat fruit, take one a day vitamin, I'm even taking a pill for "women" called Biotin, its a pill that helps the face, skin in particular, just to be healthy.

I still get about 1 zit a month and I'll be 30 this month. I've always had oily skin and have had to stay on top of it since puberty. I was on Retin-A and Tetracyclene when I was younger but now just make sure to wash at night, as a previous poster said.

-Mikey

I'm 48 and have to watch how I shave, especially my neck area. Shaving too close makes for ingrown hairs that turn into zits. The only way to get rid of those id to get the hair out....not an easy task. The way I avoid this is to not shave too close and always shave with the way the hair grows, not "against the grain" so to speak. And I only go over each area once or maybe twice, but not over and over like some people I've seen.

I would also get random zits here and there. Found that using an exfoliant every other day - I use one from Nivea for men - has really helped. I've gone off of it before and the random zits came back.

the proactiv has worked really well for me..the trick is to only wash in the morning and night and if you get greasy to use a lil of the toner as a touch up...but even if you don't order the whole system splurge on the refining mask they carry...like you use it like once or twice a week for 10 min and you can put dabs directly on the zits before you go to bed...it gets rid of them overnight without the creepy crusty dead skin thing. a thought on the accutane..doesnt it interfere with birth control?

I would recommend drinking a lot of water each day (about 1 oz. for every 2 pounds of body weight) Also get plenty of excersize. Sweating will flush your pours out. Just be sure to shower soon after, so they do not get clogged again while they are wide open.

Good Luck

I'm 19, and just before this past summer I ended my accutane treatment. The dryness I suffered during the treatment and for a period afterward was a pain, but man it was worth it. Acne 99% gone nowadays.

I had acne up until last year and used Accutane prior to it going away. It had a decent effect but what has really kept it away is swimming. If I swim once or twice a week I never get any, but if I go for more than two weeks without swimming, I'll get one or two. It's probably something to do with the chlorine.

One thing that always helped me with acne as a teenager was drinking a lot of water and working out a few times a week. The more you bother it, the worse it gets, most of the time.

I started getting pimples in elementary school (fifth grade, to be exact)... it was pretty bad up until just the past year or so. I guess I just mostly outgrew it.

On the up side, as you get older your face won't dry out and get as wrinkly as other peoples' faces will! :D (seriously, my dad looks like he's forty, not 52)

If you dare to try accutane, please be careful because it has some very scarey side effects. For example, in pregnant women it has been known to cause severe birth defects and miscarriages. Also, Accutane has caused people to become depressed and experience suicidal thoughts. It can change your vision, mess up your liver, and cause swelling, speech difficulties, joint/muscle/bone problems, chest/abdomen pain, hearing loss, bloody stool, and seizures, just to name a few. Hell no, thank you very much.

Accutane information.

Ask your Dr about stuff to help. I never had acne too severely as a teen. It came and went with my stress and general health. Lately with stress from buying a house and moving, plus my hormones went through another change (I'm 30) I had some more trouble with them. Some of the acne were so bad that now that they're gone there's still brown marks where they were. It was almost as bad or worse this time as it was when I was at my worst as a teen. For me it helps if I keep my hands off my face. Not sure why but I tend to rub and pinch my jawbone when I'm stressed. Consequently I'm working germs and dirt into my skin and I get lots of acne around my jawline when I'm stressed.

Keep your hands off your face and keep them and your face clean. Other than that get help from your doc and don't worry about it. Acne is normal and it never completely goes away. My mom is 50 and still has trouble sometimes.

Im 36 and I still get them when its time for me to start my period

ok well it's been awhile, and I haven't been really active, but heres the current situation. I've stopped using soap on my face and I noticed that the acne doesn't flair up as much after I shower now. I don't drink milk, nor do I consume dairy products beyond an occasional yogurt. My skin is still oily, and I still have a ton of acne. The scars are more noticeble and I am considering a chemical peel once the acne subsides. My parents both had acne well into their 20's so I have a ways to go still.

I have cystic(sp?) acne and it really sucks... dermatologists always give all this stuff to me and it turns into a 15 minute ordeal to wash my face. Sometimes I think all the shit they give me just make it worse. was contemplating accutane.. what are some of the side effects and are they all pretty common? Would be great to just take a pill (though I am taking 2 a day now for the past 2 months) and have it go away. As it is now it will go away for a day or 2 sometimes then fill back up. Its pretty much always been completely located on my chin in the front (not underneath) and I have never really had a problem with standard pimples.. its just the big mofo's that wont go away!!

Oh yea, and I also have very oily skin.

i'm 5 months from 19 and have acne. it sucks. Ive had it since i was 13 and have been taking medication since i was 14. really doesnt do much but reduce the amount i have. I still have quite a few active spots at any one time. this december i'm hoping to go on roaccutane. i've tried so hard to avoid it but really i think it's the only thing that will work. I've tried altering my diet and working out more etc etc. I've drank lemon juice to cleanse my body, i drink pints and pints of water a day. none of it really makes much difference. i'm sure if you had acne purely from a bad diet that stuff would work but if it's hormonal i dont think it does much at all.

so this december i will be starting roacctutane. i'm not looking forward to the sideeffects (apparently in the first month you get worse than youve ever got before, chapped lips, nosebleeds, headaches, lethargy) but i've had enough. i'm sick of being too selfconcious to look people direct in the eyes for anything longer than a few seconds.

I never had a serious acne problem, but my sister had it until she was 20 and at that point she finally took acutane. It was 6 months I believe, having to get her blood drawn once a month to see if she was pregnant and possibly also for her liver. Durign that time she would always have chapped lips and really dry skin, like I suppose most people. At one point she put a small piece of tape on her lip to hold onto it and it tore a piece of her lip off when she pulled it off. If you can tough it out it's worth it because she also looks infinitely better without acne, but otherwise I'd just wait it out. Puberty can still be in full force for people at 19 and that could be a cause I suspect.

Hrm? I'm seeing some contradictory things... is acne caused by dry skin or oily skin?

as i understand it it can be both. you want a little bit of oil on your face as that is natural and is healthy but too much or too little and you get spots. i understand why an increase in it can cause spots but not a decrease but if that was a way to stop spots everyone would just dry their skinout so i guess it is true.

i've always had acne and it's not VERY bad, some scarring, proactiv doesn't work but i use it... i know how you guys feel.. don't worry about it!

I have acne. Tis' not something that is great. I basically just deal with it. Not touching it and washing it is the best thing. Popping them is bad. Only makes more.

You can have acne even if you're an adult...