Review: Doxy-50, Doxycycline

Hello Princesses!

Today I'm going to be talking about my experience with the Acne medication - Doxy-50, Doxycycline. This is my very own experience with Doxycycline, which may be different to other peoples. This antibiotic needs to be prescribed by your GP, so if you are interested in Acne medication please go and talk to your GP first! ^.^ If you guys haven't read My Skin Story, please do, because it will help you better understand this review. 

About 4 months ago, I was getting tired with my struggles with moderate acne, so I decided to talk to my GP about Acne medication. My older brother had been prescribed Doxycycline for acne problems when he was 16, and now at 23, he's still acne free with baby smooth skin (super jealous), so I asked my GP if I could have the same medication as he did. My GP recommended that I use the oral antibiotic with a topical treatment, but after using ReTrieve Cream and having it strip my skin and leave me flaky and gross, I decided to try Doxycycline for a month by itself. 

Doxycycline took my skin from this;

To this!

(Both pictures are taken using the beauty function on my camera and different foundations.)

"Doxycycline is a tetracycline antibiotic which is commonly used to treat a variety of infections including acne, rosacea, Lyme disease, chronic prostatitis, sinusitis, pelvic inflammatory disease and ricketsial infections. Doxycycline is an option for people with moderate to severe inflammatory acne, or mild inflammatory acne that will not respond to other treatments.

Doxycycline works by hindering the growth of the bacteria - in this case, Propionibacterium acnes, which is responsible for inflamed acne breakouts. Oral antibiotics like doxycyline are especially useful in helping to clear back and body acne. Doxycycline is often used along with other with topical treatment, such as benzoyl peroxdide or Retin-A. Doxycycline is best for those with inflamed breakouts. It won’t clear up blackheads, whiteheads, or comedonal acne." (1)

The worst part of my acne was the cyctic acne, hormonal acne and allergic reactions.

 (Allergic reaction)

(Minor cystic acne) I'm sorry that this angle is so weird, not sure what's up with that one! 

I was constantly plagued by irritating acne, and I just couldn't seem to get rid of it! I know it doesn't seem like a major problem, but in daily life it's very frustrating. I felt like I needed to wear makeup to go to the supermarket, because once you get out of your teen years you shouldn't have acne right? I always felt embarrassed to show my face when my acne was bad, because I could never completely cover it with makeup, there would be redness, pores, weeping pimples and scabs where I had popped pimples (naughty, I know!) and it just made me feel so gross and unappealing. For blogging it was just as bad, if not worse. The photo's always showed my acne as worse than it really was, and even through a beauty filter on my camera, you could still see the redness, scars and acne that I couldn't cover with makeup. To keep myself sane, I Photoshopped my pictures to make my skin look nicer so nobody would want to vomit when they saw my photos or make fun of me. I've never tried to hide my Photoshopping, and I have absolutely no shame that I did Photoshop my photos.

I took Doxycycline for 3 months and these are the results that I have experienced so far! I started my Doxycycline almost straight after I finished my Omija Whitening Skincare, so the before photos are what used to be great skin for me! If you want to see how bad it used to be, check out the Omija Whitening Skincare review! Feel free to click and enlarge the photos for more detail, if that's what you want!

 Forehead: Before and After

 Side of face: Before and After

 Chin: Before and After

 (This was a great chin day, and a good lip day!)

 Full Face: Before and After

There is absolutely no Photoshop or retouching done on these photos, apart from minor exposure tweaking! I took the After photos one week after finishing my Doxycycline course, during my womanly time (coughcough) and subsequently gorging myself on sugary food. Before I stopped taking the Doxycycline, my skin looked so nice, soft and smooth!

There are a lot of side effects that you can experience while taking acne medication, and I was fortunate enough to have very minor side effects. I experienced minor photo-sensitivity, moderate de-hydration and extreme dryness of lips. The lip dryness is quite irritating, because it means that I can't wear half of my lipsticks, and my lips look like shriveled prunes with bits of skin flaking everywhere. Ick. But it could be worse, and I'm glad that it's not!

During my Doxycycline course I learnt a lot about my skin. I still had hormonal acne, but it was only the small whitehead pimples you can see in the After photos. I also still got the same whiteheads when I ate too much sugar, something that Doxycycline won't help with. I haven't had any cystic acne or large pimples since a month after starting my Doxycycline course! A lot of the blemishes still on my face are scars which have been majorly reduced by my strict Rosehip oil regime. I'm currently working my way through all my skincare testers, but I'm missing my Trilogy skincare so much! These are the products that I used during my 3 month course of Doxycycline.

My absolute favorite is the Trilogy Rosehip Oil! It kept my skin moisturized, helped to fade my scars and hyper pigmentation, reduced redness and made my skin feel super bouncy and soft! These products are absolutely amazing and I cannot recommend them enough!

What I Love

- Effectively reduced my acne

- Very minor side effects

- Inexpensive: $22 for 3 months

- Easy to take: small pill size

- Worked well without topical treatment

What I Don't Love

- Made my lips pretty disgusting

- Couldn't go outside for very long due to photo-sensitivity

Final Thoughts

I really like Doxycycline! I did a lot of research on Acne medication before choosing Doxycycline and there are quite a lot that can give you depression and a lot of nasty side effects, so I'm very fortunate that I had very minor side effects. Doxycycline helped me clear up my existing acne, but it doesn't help with hormonal acne, allergies or blackheads. I would recommend Doxycycline to people that have minor to moderate acne (even though it can be used for severe acne)! 

I've been prescribed another 3 months of Doxy-50, so in 3 months I will do an update post for you all! If you have any questions about my experience with Doxycycline, feel free to ask in the comment box down below and I will try to help you the best that I can! ^^