I am looking for a simple acne management option for my son. Anything OTC worked for your teen? Can a facial help? (I am not sure boys go for that). If you went the dermatologist route, what did he prescribe and did it work?
What type of acne does your son have? Treatment options are really different based upon the type and severity of an individual’s acne. Some types of acne will simply not respond to OTC treatments. My son has cystic acne and takes Oracea (an oral antibiotic) and uses AcZone (a topical ointment) which were prescribed by his dermatologist. He washes his face with CeraVe soap (which is an OTC product recommend by his dermatologist). However, for my son, while these are helping to manage his acne, they are still not doing enough to clear it up completely. His dermatologist recommends that he go through a course of Accutane. We will start that when he returns home from college at the end of his spring semester because Accutane treatment requires monthly bloodwork and that is going to be easier to do when he’s at home.
Thank you for sharing your regimen. I would not say his is severe, but he is picking it and got scarring in some spots already. He used ProActiv system and it helped a little. But now I realized that one of the products contains almond oil and he has a nut allergy, so I don’t want to re-order it anymore. Other products seem to be too drying, his skin is not oily. I want to find something he can manage while away in school.
It can really vary from person to person. I personally don’t think ProActiv is good. Also, dry skin can cause acne as well. Basically, acne is a body’s overreaction to being stressed so dead skin cells, the stress of dry skin can be just as acne causing as oily skin. It’s a reason why too much treatment/washing can be bad as well.
Definitely try to get him to not touch.
One natural remedy worth trying is tea tree oil applied topically.
I actually thought ProActiv was good, but once the acne is cleared, then it is too strong for me (and my kids).
I say go to the dermatologist.
If you go to a dermatologist, you might want to prepare your son for the possibility of an unpleasant lecture from the doctor re: the picking.
I’m in my 50s and I wasn’t prepared for the scolding (acne scars). I shared the story with a friend, and she confided that she was also scolded by a (different) dermatologist for sun exposure over the years.
It’s sort of funny now, but at the time, I was really put-off by the attitude.
I started reading about medications your listed. Please please please look up Accutane before putting your son on it. It has serious side effects including inflammatory bowel disease and depression. Millions were awarded in claims. I hope your dermatologist can offer an alternative.
Accutane is very effective in treating severe acne in some individuals. My son made the decision to take it at 18 after other treatments had failed. The improvement in his skin was extraordinary and permanent, and there were no serious side effects. The only side effect he experienced was a lasting tendency to develop chapped lips easily.
Yes, there is a risk of serious side effects with Accutane. But the small possibility of risk should be weighed against the potential benefit. For some patients, the decision to use Accutane can be a good one.
My S was getting blemishes on his jaw line and it really bothered him so we took him to our local dermatologist. Nothing he prescribed worked at all – total waste of time and $. What we did have great success with was anything with a 10% formulation of benzoyl peroxide – most formulations are 2% or 3% so you have to search for the higher formulation. We had great success with these products: Perrigo’s 10% Benzoyl Peroxide Wash, Clean & Clear Persa-gel 10% and PanOxyl 10% Foaming Wash.
His friends swear by the PanOxyl 10% bar of soap but it is so in demand that it is selling on Amazon for $73 a bar!
https://www.amazon.com/Panoxyl-LAAMFU-PanOxyl-Bar-10/dp/B0000Y3COC
We found the other products in our local pharmacy for around $25 and they cleared him up very well.
I had acne from 9th-11th grade and it has just gone away. This may also be due to my natural hormone cycle, but this seemed to work for me:
- I stopped using a ton of face products and only washed my face with water and a very light foamy cleanser at night
- I drank more water
- Stopped touching my face (don’t pop any pimples it just leads to scarring and greater risk of infection)
- CLEAN YOUR PILLOW CASES ALMOST DAILY
- If a pimple came up, I put a bit of antibiotic ointment on it before bed. (If you wear face makeup it really helps prevent further infection/pimples)
- Watched as all my scarring and pimples began to fade away.
I found changing my pillow cases and using antibacterial ointment to be super effective (within the timespan of a month most of my pimples were gone as well as the redness).
My children have had success using Paula’s Choice’s 3 step system for acne. It’s not that expensive so may be worth a try to see if it works. Good luck, trial and error is necessary since acne appears to be so unique to each person.
My son has just developed persistent acne (no cysts) in the past year, and he’s 20. He’ll be seeing his regular physician while home on break in March. Both of my kids have always had gorgeous skin, but the stress of college transitions has really affected both of them. My daughter’s doctor gave her topical clindamycin for her forehead acne and it cleared it up very well, although she says it really dried her skin out.
Years ago, my brother was treated with Accutane. Yes, it has dangerous side effects, but they were nothing compared to the horrendous depression my brother faced when thinking of himself as an unlovable monster. Severe cystic acne is both disfiguring and painful, and sometimes the side effects of powerful drugs like Accutane are worth it if it means having a normal face again.
Another +1 for Accutane. For sufferers of severe acne, it can be a miracle. It is only used under the strict care and rigorous monthly follow-ups of a doctor. For those who have been through years of trying different stuff, as @marian describes, and have suffered through the physical and emotional effects of severe acne, I say thank god for Accutane. @adigal Summertime is a perfect time to do a course because it is a less drying season than wintertime for much of the country.
As I mentioned before, different medications/treatments work for different people. The frustrating thing is you often have to give a course of treatment a minimum of several months to know if it is going to work well longer term. Sometimes, you’ll see short term improvement from things like antibiotics but those can wear off and you’re back where you were.
An option for girls only that have hormonal or cystic acne is spironolactone. It’s an androgen blocker so males cannot use it. I saw it work miracles on my friends 2 daughters. Apparently it evens out your hormones and for them within 30 days they were back to peaches and cream skin.
My son took minocycline (sp?) through high school but his acne cleared gradually at age 19. He had rather bad acne and cysts but the drug kept it under enough control without Accutane which I was fearful of him using. He used proactive scrub but no other products for acne.
Thank you all for your great suggestions,I appreciate it:).
DS had luck with the Neutrogena products. He still had a little acne, but when he was at the dermatologist for something else, he was told the result he’d achieved was good enough that the doc wouldn’t prescribe anything else.
He did get a lecture about the importance of cleanliness (including pillowcase and hair, so it didn’t dirty the former. )
I know that some docs want you to have tried an OTC regime before they go to the stronger stuff, in part to demonstrate that you can follow a regimen.
Sal-3 is another OTC option, a soap, followed by a moisturizer.
One of my kids used accutane. He was monitored VERY closely by his doctors. VERY. This is key. IIRC! He also,HS to take Lipitor for a short time… but once off of the accutane…this ended.
Check your insurance. Accutane does come in a generic now. But it’s still pretty pricey.
All three of our kids have landed at the dermatologist for acne over the years. I think they’ve used AcZone, EpiDuo, some other topical things, and some different antibiotics. Cerave products have been recommended. Another recommended Irish Spring bar soap for very oily skin because it’s the only one that has no lotions (although I’ve seen a moisturizing variety recently). The various topical products worked well for a couple of the kids. One has ended up on Accutane. That was a hard decision but nothing else had had any impact, and the kid’s self-esteem was suffering. This wasn’t a mild case of acne. The accutane is showing very good results with minimal side effects so far.