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Acne got worse before it got better

Started 14 June 2025 · 19 replies · 171 hearts · read 3.3k times

BobbieRochdale, UK · 14 June 2025
about a year ago

Starting a thread on this because it keeps coming up in ones and twos: Acne got worse before it got better

I have had this diagnosis for a long time and none of the general advice quite fits me.

I have read the guides here, which were more useful than anything else I have found, and I still have a question they do not cover.

I have written down what has actually happened, in order, because I find that more useful than my summary of it.

The thing that has surprised me most is how much of this is about other people rather than about me.

I will report back either way, because I have been helped by other people's follow-ups more than by their questions.

57

GittaBonn, DE
#1

I have been in this circle a year and this question comes round every few months. It is not a silly question. It is the question.

6me too 8

LuPreston, UK
#2

the opening post said something I want to sit with for a second.

Similar here, and mine turned out to be a completely unrelated deficiency picked up on bloods.

10

MiraFacilitatorRotterdam, Netherlands
#3

Noticing out loud that this conversation has drifted into comparison. That happens without anyone intending it and it does not help anyone. Let us come back to the person who asked.

11

CloverTotnes, UK
#4

Please do not read the comments under news articles about this. I lost a fortnight to that.

9

BodilÅlesund, NO
#5

Building on what the reply above wrote rather than answering the original question.

What helped was lowering my own expectations of the week rather than trying to hold the week together.

7

TansyLudlow, UK
#6

My experience was very boring, which I offer as data. Some of us just get a dull time of it.

6

RuaridhFort William, UK
#7

I am the person who had the frightening version of this. I went in, it was investigated, and it was not what anyone feared. Going in is the whole of my advice.

9

TinukeManchester, UK
#8

the reply above said something I want to sit with for a second.

Coming back to this a fortnight later to say it settled. Leaving the update because I hate reading threads that stop.

9me too 3

HannahSheffield, UK
#9

Building on what the reply above wrote rather than answering the original question.

Practical, boring answer: write the three questions down before you go in. I have never once remembered them otherwise.

10

TildaCambridge, UK
#10

I did exactly the same and felt terrible about it. You have not done anything wrong.

6

AbelAddis Ababa, ET
#11

No advice, just recognition. That sounds exhausting and I am sorry you are in it.

9me too 9

BeaDublin, IE
#12

Reading the reply above, I recognised more of that than I expected to.

I keep a two-line diary and it is the only reason I could answer this question about myself. Worth starting even now.

10

MapleToronto, CA
#13

Different experience here, for balance. Mine did not improve and in the end I stopped, and that was the right call for me. Both outcomes exist.

7

PoppyLeeds, UK
#14

The phrase that unlocked my appointment was asking what specifically she wanted me to watch for. It moved us from reassurance to a plan in about thirty seconds.

9

PrunellaBury St Edmunds, UK
#15

I am about four months behind you and I have been dreading exactly this, so thank you for writing it down before I got there.

10

BrennaEnniskillen, NI
#16

Yes to the burping. It is real, it is unbeautiful, and it does settle.

11me too 4

OdileMontreal, CA
#17

Gently disagreeing with the reply above, or rather adding the other half of it.

Can I gently push back on one thing? Not the substance, just the framing — you have written twice that you should be coping better. Who told you that?

5

MiraFacilitatorRotterdam, Netherlands
#18

Two things, both boring. First, none of us can tell you what to take. Second, the conversation you want to have is with your prescriber, and we can help you write it down.

17

MaritGroningen, NL
#19

I asked my nurse the same question and she said something I have repeated ever since: that the aim is to keep you on treatment, not to get you up the schedule.

10