My acne journey didn’t start because I went to the doctor for my acne. I don’t really remember what I went for. He was looking up my nose and in my ears and the thing is I used to have horrible cystic acne and was highly self conscious about it. It was on my face, my neck, behind my ears, my back, chest, everywhere. I had 15-20 large cysts on my body almost all the time. I would cover my face with makeup and hide my neck with my hair. When he looked in my ears I tried to move my hair so that he wouldn’t see my skin. He finished what he was doing and brought it up in a way that didn’t make me feel bad. I think he said “I saw that you tried to hide your skin. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. There are a lot of things that can cause acne.” And I said “look at my back.” And he didn’t react with total shock like you’d expect anyone to do because it was BAD. He said “let’s try to figure out why this happening and try to help you.” And it went from there. It turned out that I had way way too much testosterone in my body. I’m a girl, so my body was like “the fuck is this garbage.” And used my skin as a way to filter it out. I was put on birth control and an antibiotic. They told me the kind of antibiotic I was on would not affect my birth control. I went from having huge, painful cystic acne to completely clear skin within 4 months. I still have scars but very rarely do I get acne.

I had been dealing with that since I hit puberty. I had been made fun of, adding to me being self conscious. People pointed it out all the time. I was told I was disgusting and no matter what I did.. no matter how much money we spent on skin care products my skin was always shit. That doctor knows I’m thankful to him. He was so pleased with how much my skin had improved. I will always be thankful to him for helping me feel comfortable in my own skin. Thing is with doctors you go in for something and they check you out for what you went for and you get what you need and go go go. This doctor took the time to address something that was clearly a problem and help that, on top of what I went to him for. I went back to him for a check up because I made him my primary physician. When he saw me he said “your skin looks so good!” And I was like “yasssss”