Skin update #1 - Lymecycline/Tetracycline

Aloha my lovelies~ Today I thought I'd talk about what I've been doing for my skin lately.

Last time I posted about my skin, it was in a really bad state. You can click here to read the full post. After asking many people for advice, and them telling me to see my dermatologist, I gave in and made an appointment. I explained to her how painful it was and how I'm sick to death of battling with my acne on a daily basis; it's been about eleven years now, and I still haven't gotten rid of it, no matter what I tried. I had already been on antibiotics when I was around sixteen, and that messed my skin up even more, which put me off going to the doctors for it until now.

She decided that it was time to put me on Roaccutane, which is a last resort drug that is extremely harsh and you have to jump through a million hoops before even being considered to be put on it. I had to book a blood test to see if I had the all clear, and in the mean time she prescribed me something else to take as the time until I get Roaccutane will be quite long, and she wanted me to see if anything else that was left (that was less harsh) would work on my skin instead.

And guess what she gave me? Yup you guessed it.. more antibiotics.The first set she gave me when I was sixteen was an antibiotic called Tetracycline and some topical creams containing Benzoyl Peroxide and Differin in. It dried out my skin, my eyelids were rough and dry, and it LITERALLY cracked my lips. LITERALLY. It even made them turn bluey purple. 

It didn't help that I had no good idea about skincare back then either. She never told me to wash it off properly in the morning, she didn't explain what the ingredients were - I just assumed it was like a moisturiser like a nivea cream I had that had some added bonus ingredient in to get rid of the spots. It didn't occur to me to look up the ingredients or research them either, as I had a lot of bad things going on in my life which took centre stage instead.

But now that I know a lot more about skincare, I can battle anything that comes my way when it comes to any skin-related side effects when taking antibiotics.

But alas, as prepared as I was for those side effects, it was not to be. At least not with this one anyway. My dermatologist prescribed me some antibiotics (which is similar to tetracycline) called Lymecycline. I took these for two weeks exactly, and I had no skin related side effects apart from a little dryness, but that was easily combated with a heavier moisturiser. 

The reason I had to stop taking these was because I was having other side effects that I couldn't handle. These included headaches, dizziness, and itchy skin. I was itchy on my face, arms, legs, torso, back. It was ridiculous! When I would pray and stand up after prostrating, I would be so dizzy I would fall side ways and end up hitting myself on a wall or a sofa or even the fan!

If you know me personally, you'd know I suffer from migraine attacks very frequently, but less so than before. Because of the fact that they had been getting less, I was very happy - but then I would get a different type of headache which lasted a lot longer and was painful in a different way, and the only thing I was taking that was different was the antibiotics.

Anyone who has had migraine attacks like mine will agree with me that you wouldn't wish them on your worst enemy, and I did NOT want to have any more headaches than I could take, so in the end I had to stop taking the antibiotics.

I managed to get another appointment with my dermatologist and she told me to stop taking the Lymecyline and prescribed me another antibiotic which is also in the same family of drugs, but I will post about  how I'm getting on with that in an other skincare update, seeing as I've only just received them, so I can't really tell you if I have any side effects yet!

Whewww, sorry about the length of this, I didn't realise I had so much to say! I might post another update in about two weeks, or maybe earlier depending on if these antibiotics work or not - hopefully they will, that way I won't have to go on anything harsher! (^__^)

Let me know in the comments below if you like posts like this, and/or if you have any questions about any of the topical creams or antibiotics I've used, or anything else related to this post - I'll try my best to answer it :o)