Hey guys,

I know I've been posting a lot lately, but I'm really just at a loss here, and I find forum is helpful. So basically, my body acne is really starting to ramp up after being a little bit better due to topical stuff I've been using for over 2 months. Both my shoulders are a mess, and my back gets new cystic acne every week. The only thing I've mostly cleared up is my chest, but that was never too bad to begin with. My face has also cleared, but it's never perfect, and that gets me down sometimes too. But the cystic acne is just a nightmare to deal with all the time, and I'm really worried about all this scarring. It's not even how it looks really, it's just how out of control it feels. I'm really scared about how much worse it's going to get...

Essentially, I'm looking at three options. I can either take oral antibiotics, which will probably mess up my stomach even more than it's already messed up, and are not guaranteed to help my acne. I can also try accutane, but obviously because that's such an intense drug, I'm very nervous about using it. Finally, I can stop testosterone, and go back to how I was before, where I had literally no acne. It's crazy how someone can go from no acne at all to moderate cystic acne just from testosterone. I was expecting to get more acne, but not this much to the point where I'm one of those people who has to take accutane. It's so upsetting.

Any advice? I really can't imagine living without T now, it's really changed my life, and I'm finally living as myself. But the increasing severity of my acne is really messing me up mentally, and the thought of taking accutane for like 6 months scares me. Has anyone stopped T because of acne? I've been on T nearly a year, what's it like living as male without T? At least I have some irreversible changes, but I am afraid I'll stop passing again. How is the passing after T?

Quote from: loren1 on August 07, 2017, 10:11:56 PM
Any advice? I really can't imagine living without T now, it's really changed my life, and I'm finally living as myself. But the increasing severity of my acne is really messing me up mentally, and the thought of taking accutane for like 6 months scares me. Has anyone stopped T because of acne? I've been on T nearly a year, what's it like living as male without T? At least I have some irreversible changes, but I am afraid I'll stop passing again. How is the passing after T?

You've only been on T for slightly less than a year. The acne phase varies for everyone, but it tends to ramp up around the six month mark and taper off anywhere between the 2-3 year stage. Now, again, this isn't a guarantee because there simply aren't any guarantees, but your body needs time to adjust to running on a new sex hormone. One of those unfortunate side effects tends to be acne.
I, too, had pretty bad bacne (sometimes as many as 10 cystic spots at once scattered throughout my back and shoulders). I was also getting it on my face (for the record, I'm a little under two months shy of my 2 year anniversary) but that stopped a few months ago. In the last 4-5 months, the acne on my shoulders and back have cleared considerably. There are still a few small spots but nothing outside the realm of what I'd consider manageable.
Now, if you're uninterested in 'riding out the storm' and fearful of scarring, I'd highly recommend seeing a dermatologist before stopping T. I know you mentioned using a topical: Is it OTC? A doctor would be able to take a look at you, evaluate the type of acne you have and give you something stronger for it than you're going to find at a department store.
Accutane is literally a last resort sort of deal they tend to reserve for the absolute worst cases (I'm talking a back that looks like ground beef, crater-and-pustule-marked faces, etc.). There are a ton of steps to take before leaping off that cliff.

As far as stopping testosterone, it could really do a number on you mentally (more so than the acne, even). Your voice, if it's still cracking, will remain that way in a sort of limbo. Any additional weight gain and such would revert back to female patterns and your body hair, if you've grown any, will start to lighten over time. The acne could still take months to resolve even if HRT is stopped completely due to your body once again trying to readjust to a different hormonal setting.

Look... stop, take a deep breath and step back to take a gander at the big picture.

- "I really can't imagine living without T now, it's really changed my life, and I'm finally living as myself". The acne is temporary, treatable, and you're just struggling because you're in the thick of it. If you want to live the rest of your life living as yourself and you enjoy everything else HRT is doing for you, the acne thing is simply a toll you have to pay to get there.
- If you feel 'right' on T and you felt like **** before, those awful feelings are likely going to be amplified x183901839038 by stopping.

I'm only here for tough love, so take this as that.

But you can't be serious. Do you hear yourself? You've basically said I'm wondering if I should stop doing this thing that has changed my life for the better because I have acne. ACNE.

People get acne of all severities all the time. You're putting your body through a second puberty. Did you have skin issues the first time around? Testosterone is generally a harsher hormone, so it's probably going to be worse than your original go through. Like Stone Magnum said, the acne phase varies but it typically starts to noticeably improve somewhere in the 2-3 year mark. For some people sooner, for some later. But it's not something you're going to be dealing with for the rest of your life.

Have you seen a dermatologist yet? I would go talk to one and see if they can recommend a decent body wash. There may be prescription strength stuff available. I'd try that, and then I'd take accutane before I stopped taking T.

Why not just lower the dose rather than quit altogether?

If you quit T completely it is going to take your body a long time to adjust and get back to working as it did before (I'm assuming you haven't had ovaries or anything removed) and if you do that you are going to feel like hell for that duration of time without sex hormone in your body. Unless you go back to taking estrogen daily. I'm speaking from experience here. Being deprived of sex hormones can play havoc with your body - I developed hypothyroidism for a year as a result and that had many side-effects I'm still living with years later. And that's not mentioning the massive anxiety that comes with it, body pains and weakness, poor healing, fatigue etc.

Hormones aren't something to be taken lightly, or even like "wonder drugs" that fix some of our problems but we don't 'really need'. You need sex hormone every day for normal functioning, play with the dose or remove the dose and you are impairing your body.

My advice would be to look into other ways to curb your acne. Try Eurax cream first, or any cream with the active ingredient permethrin, ivermectin or crotamiton. If this works, you may not need antibiotics.

my acne was out of control after I started T. On my face and body, but recently I've noticed it's calming down. My face has no more acne and only a few on my back. It does go away, just give it time. I mean, ACNE isn't the end of the world as compare to the emotional, dysphoria, and depression pre-T, I'd take acne any day! Cheers!

Accutane is a scary drug but if you can find a dermatologist that is willing to give you a low dosage you will be ok. I did Accutane starting with 10mg and ending with 80mg. Some dry skin and lips, dry eyes, achy after a good workout but fine otherwise. Cleared up my skin everywhere so well I felt like a babies ass. Its a damn wonder drug I tell you. Most dermatologists put folks on a rather aggressive course right away and it wreaks havoc. There are topical meds that contain some of the properties of Accutane on a much smaller level. They can dry your skin too but it is manageable.

I use a prescription acne cream called Epiduo here in the UK which works very well. It can burn your skin or dry it out slightly if you use too much but I'm now acne free so no complaints.