Update: Doxy-50; Doxycycline (6 Months)

Hello Princesses!

Today I'm going to be talking about my second three month session with the acne medication Doxy-50. After the first three months of Doxy-50, I was prescribed another three months worth of Doxy-50 and told to stop taking the medication after I felt that I had achieved "perfect skin". I reached my ideal skin after one and a half months into my second session and stopped taking the medication. I still had a lot of scarring which made my face seem imperfect, but I had zero acne!

This was my skin before I started taking Doxy-50

 And this is my skin after 4 and a half months taking Doxy-50 and 1 and a half month adjusting.

 Close ups of my beautiful face before, and 3 months into the acne medication.

 And this is my skin another three months down the line.

I still get the odd breakout along my forehead due to stress, and along my chin from hormones, but I'm largely acne free! I know my skin looks awful but a lot of the blemishes are just scarring, there are only 4 pimples present which is a massive improvement for me!

During the past 3 months I was still experiencing allergic reactions. These reactions were becoming more severe, and I seemed to be reacting to more and more products until the only skin care that wasn't triggering painful hivey whiteheads was my trilogy rose hip oil and cleanser.

Then one day, I had a brainwave. Maybe, just maybe, it wasn't skincare that was the problem. It turns out that I've developed an allergy to adhesive.

Here's the back store. 

I am currently studying towards my Master of Music, majoring in Performance Flute. I play in orchestras, operas and do a lot of teaching and performing. When you're performing on the flute, it can get very hot on stage, and you sweat from the heat and the pure terror of playing in front of crowds. This seems like TMI, but it's important to the story, trust me. When your face sweats (and it will) it makes it very difficult to keep the flute from sliding around on your face since wet metal is very slippery, especially when it's balanced precariously on your face. To increase surface area on the lip plate (section of the flute that rests on your chin) you can tape a small section of masking tape to the lip plate. This effectively stops the flute from accidentally sliding around if you have tricky passages, playing during the summer or when you're just a nervous sweaty performer. I don't always use the tape, but reserve it for important concerts, because you can get too dependent on the security of the tape and forget what it's like to play on a smooth metal head.  The tape also stops the flutes metal/silver/gold reacting with some types of skincare (Clearisil is notoriously bad) and makeup corroding your flute and leaving tarnish stains on your chin (also known as that gross flute chin thing).

I've been using masking tape on my flute for four years now with no problems, but during my last concert I noticed that the tape was making my chin feel super dry and itchy, so I did the only thing that would make my skin feel better, which was to remove the tape and keep playing. That evening my skin was absolutely on fire with itches, and the following morning was covered in itchy painful hives. I couldn't understand why, because I hadn't changed any skincare or makeup! Honestly, this allergy made me upset in ways you cannot imagine, (unless your also allergic to the things you love most), because I assumed I was allergic to skin care and makeup, and I though I would have to give up blogging for sure, and live out my days as a gross skinned makeup-less hermit.

Only then did it occur to me that it was only on my chin ... and my chin was itchy after playing the flute ... after using tape. It seems so obvious in retrospect, (especially considering both my boyfriend and younger sister are allergic to heavy duty adhesive), but at the time I was so confused and scared! I thought that I either had an allergy to silver (totally possible) or an allergy to the tape (almost as bad because I do rely on it for performance), so I stopped playing with the tape, and I stopped getting the allergies. I'm left with horribly scarred skin which is no fun, but it's miles better than the painful allergies.

So after 4 and a half months of Doxy-50, how has my skin fared?

I really liked being on Doxy-50! It cleared up my skin without having too many side effects. I experienced severely dry lips and minor photo sensitivity, but that was it! To combat the dry lips, my holy grail life saving product was the Clarins Moisture Replenishing Lip Balm, which was well worth the $40! I wore a high SPF sunscreen and sunglasses constantly to combat the photo sensitivity.

There is just a pre-warning and a mini disclaimer - even though Doxy-50 worked well for my skin, it does not guarantee the same results for your skin. Everyone has different skin, and between the severity of acne, hormones and eating habits that can contribute to acne, so you may have to try a couple of different acne medications before you find something that works for you, but I hope this update has helped some of you princesses out there that are suffering from acne (or extreme stupidity + adhesive allergies) like me!

If you have any questions about Doxy-50 leave me a comment down below and I'll try my best to help you out! ^.^