Evil in a tube?

[euphrosyne_rose]

This past winter I noticed my skin was getting dry and staying dry on my face which was a little odd since for the most part of my life, my skin has been combination. I started using Clinique's Gentle Cleansing Milk (or something like that) and began to notice a huge difference and felt like my skin was feeling better. Once the weather started getting warmer, my skin started getting oilier and breaking out more and more and I went to the derm doctor about 2 weeks ago. He prescribed this gel called Ziana and I know you're supposed to stick with it and all that, but I feel like that stuff is horrible on my skin! I only had a couple of spots on my chin when I started using it (so I wouldn't exactly say I had ACNE) and now I have small little bumps all over my cheeks and even a few spots on my face that aren't bumps but are raw, flaky areas where the skin has flaked off. There's even a spot on my lower cheek/jaw area that looks like an area I "picked" at but didn't! I'm using Cetaphil moisturizer and Purpose cleanser at his suggestion but I feel like the Purpose is too drying. I stopped using the Ziana and haven't used it in over a week and still all those bumps and spots haven't faded or gone away. My m/u covers it all for the most part but you can still see the dry flaky areas up close. Any suggestions or feedback from anyone who has used Ziana? I looked up this topic and only found a few people who had good results. Anyone have a bad reaction like me?

 

[Candy Christ]

Well, I've never used that gel or heard of it but last December I tried out that Avon's Magix primer type thing and I started noticing these small bumps like yours, except they were on my forehead. I tried a lot of things to get rid of them and ended up making my skin rough and dry. If you have the money to spare and want to try a different skincare setup, I'd recommend Lush, especially their moisturizers. Their soaps are the only thing that has gotten rid of those bumps without making my skin dry at all. If you'd like you can PM me about which products I use by them. HTH!

 

[User38]

check out the ingredients on any products you use and write them down -- that way if you are recc any product, you can cross ref and see if any of the ingredients coincide and may be the culprit for any bumps.

 

[breezybabe89]

What you are seeing are comedones, a type of blackhead/whitehead. With most acne regimes your skin will unfortunately get worse before it gets better. Essentially what the Ziana is doing is pulling all the stuff clogged deep down in your pore up, resulting with the comedones. My mother is an aesthetician and when I had really bad acne in high school see made me try an Obaji Cleansiderm routine to help clear it up and for the first month my skin was all over the place. I had blackheads, whiteheads, dry patches, you name it but I stuck with it and have never had better skin in my life. So I know the initial side effects of a new skin care routine may be annoying but I think you should stick with it if your dermatologist suggested it. However, if the side effects last longer than a month I would ask him/her if they could recommend another product. HTH