First Dermatologist Visit & Prescription Doxycycline Antibiotics

In the of 1999 I had my first appointment with a dermatologist in South Florida.

At first she prescribed 50mg of doxycycline oral antibiotics once a day. I took them as directed and even got into a routine of taking at almost the exact same time of day.

My persistence and patience paid off because just about 6 weeks later I started to see less new blemishes appearing.

The next time I saw my dermatologist she upped my dosage of doxycycline to 50mg twice a day. As expected, my acne improved some more. At my final appointment of the year she increased my dosage to 100mg twice a day.

Once my skin started to look better, I began to feel more social and outgoing.

Obviously that was one of the desired results of my treatment but it also caused me to forget to take a pill every so often. I also started to neglect my face washing routine when I came home too late in the night and just went straight to bed.

The combination of occasionally skipping a dosage of antibiotic, not getting enough sleep, failing to wash my face, and eating a poor diet (late night pizzas, etc) resulted in a rollercoaster of breakouts throughout the year.

When I did remember to wash my face, I was using Clearasil Daily Face Wash and Neutrogena Body Clear body wash with salicylic acid for the pimples on my chest, back and shoulders.

The doxycycline antibiotic seemed to reduce the whitehead pimples on my face (when I remembered to take it consistently) but didn't have much effect on the deep, large and painful acne bumps on my neck, back and shoulders.

I wasn't too informed back then, but now I know that my condition had progressed to "severe acne" which is marked by "nodular acne" or "cystic acne". That's the type of acne that can be very painful, can cause scarring and feels like a firm fluid filled bump under your skin.

My Skin Pictures 1999
After a few months of religiously taking my doxycycline oral antibiotics I started to notice some improvement. My main problem areas were my forehead, neck and chin. If you look at the pictures below you'll see that my forehead cleared up slightly from August to October and then even more dramatically by November.
Forehead - August 1999	Cheek - August 1999	Cheek & Neck - October 1999
Forehead - October 1999	Forehead - November 1999	Neck & Chin - November 1999

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