The first one is to, he suggested me to take some medicine. It’s a liquid in a, it’s a liquid in a, a small bottle and you kind of drink it. And also he suggest to apply some medicine on my face. But I don’t remember the name of the medicine and what’s, yeah, what’s inside it. So that’s the first doctor. The second doctor suggest me to use a machine that produce steam.

Oh yeah.

Like, yeah, because he thinks that it’s because there’s some thing in my skin. Because I don’t really exercise very, very often, so there will, there will be something in my skin. And he wanted to like, the steam has a like higher temperature than my skin. And it, when it touches my skin it will helped my pore to, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, then after that there will be some medicine like, not medicine, treatment applied to my skin. And the third one is also some treatment like I have on my skin. And he also suggest that because my skin is kind of very seriously damaged underneath and he said that there will be future treatment for it. Like it’s not for the acne. It’s actually for the scars, yeah. I’m really worried.

And what happened when she did it, she didn’t use that special fruit lotion she, she just used baby lotion, so she kind of infected one spot with the other one when she went all over the back with it. So, I was a bit, it didn’t help at all, it made it a- worse actually. So, and it hurts a lot to let people see your back and then, you know, get all the pus out and, yeah, it’s not nice. So, she yeah, I don’t know, she was OK with, then my mum and I we went to look for something else to really, make sure it really was OK.

So then we ended up in this little clinic and they had skin treatment thingies, laser as well, so everything for people what they needed. And she showed, she was really nice in the beginning, the first appointment was just really making you feel comfortable, showing you that they do know what they’re doing and making sure that if we start the treatment that you can also be like, OK, this is not working. Fine, it’s not working, but you have to give it a, a shot. So I had to at least make sure I would give it half a year to try and see if it gets better. So that was every week for a half year and then from there on it got into two weeks, maybe once a month.

OK.

So it got better gradually.

[Laughs] It, like you just think, it’s the sort of thing where like, If this really works then more people would know about it. But you still try it anyway. So I remember doing all sorts. You make little scrubs out of, you know, honey and oil and sugar and all sorts of bizarre things. And the one that, the one that I’m still not really sure if it works is putting toothpaste on spots. Cos that does the same thing, it kind of dries them out but not very well. And then you end up with like a minty face, [laughs] yeah. So that, I don’t tend to do the toothpaste-based thing. But, yeah.

Did you try any supplements or any sort of herbal remedy style things?

I remember, it, this was mostly when I was trying to get rid of the scarring, I remember using a lot of vitamin E oil, almond oil. I used, while I still had some acne I used, what’s it called? Tea tree oil. Which, it does that thing where it kind of, you put it on and it burns a bit so you think it’s working. And that kind of helped, but obviously it’s really strong smelling. The same with TCP, that had the sort of drying thing, but it just, the smell just stays on your face for the next two days. So I try not to use it any more.

I think when you have acne you are literally willing to give absolutely everything a go. For example, I put, for quite a while [laughs] I put asp-, I got a pestle and mortar and put, got aspirin tablets and then made it into like a paste and then stuck it on my spots, and stuff like that.

So, I’ve often been willing to try lots of different things and this will actually really, really-, I noticed it completely, and now I swear about; I wouldn’t drink milk again. Which is interesting.

Where did you hear about the aspirin paste?

[Laughs] It was also through a friend. He, he just said he used it for his skin and he was at my-, I was at his house one time and basically he put-, he like made a paste for me, I stuck it on my skin for about two hours or something, and like I felt like the redness had gone down, and the next day I did it again and-. I mean I don’t [laughs], I don’t know how useful it is but I did feel like the redness went down.

So, I did that for about maybe like a couple of weeks after [laughs], after that and then I sort of forgot about it. But, yeah, it’s interesting how you’re willing to definitely improvise [laughs].

I mean for the yeast one I really don’t think it made any difference; I think I was just eating yeast. So [laughs]. I don’t think it had any side effects. I think, I guess the ones that are sort of more natural ones, say like, you know, the yeast and the cutting out wheat and the cutting out dairy, I guess you have more faith that they might not have side effects cos they seem more natural, like natural based, whereas for the antibiotics you’re always a little bit worried what’s in them because they’re not as-, I don’t know, they don’t really feel as natural cos you’re taking a pill and you feel like you’re sort of medicating yourself.

So, I guess we’re always-, we’re more willing to try the more sort of homeopathic remedy, or the more natural remedies cos we didn’t really think it-, if it didn’t work it didn’t work and it’s not going to be bad for us if it doesn’t work sort of thing.

Getting quite frustrated because I think a lot of people- especially in South Africa where it’s culturally less , they don’t mind people kind of being more confrontational, a lot of people came up to me in like the shops and like Boots, or the equivalent of Boots, and tried to sell me a lot of things. And like a lot of the, they have like a lot of sort of herbal traditional healers, and they’d like follow me down the street, like [laughs], I’ve got this product to give you, like it’ll really sort out you skin, and this kind of thing. Which was really humiliating, because people in the street would be looking at us. And I’d just be trying to tell them, I don’t, I don’t want it. And they’d be like, Well, how can you not want this? Like, look at your skin, it’s really bad. But this will sort you out. And I just [laugh]. It’s like, Leave me alone [laugh].

It must have been really difficult to cope with, to sort of respond to emotionally, or-?

Yeah. I think- cos there’s part of me that’s really, really angry. But I think at the time like you’re just really, really embarrassed. You’re just like ‘just go way, just go away, like I don’t want everyone to stare at me. Because they’re already looking at , already having a look anyway, because it’s quite an obvious like rash over the face. And people are like sort of glancing over and think-, you can tell they’re looking at your skin anyway. So I don’t need the attention. But I also just felt like, it just made me feel like really vulnerable, I think, as well. Because I couldn’t really tell them to go away. And I could tell they were picking on me because of something that was, you know, wrong with me. And I just, yeah, just feeling like really vulnerable and just really exposed. But yeah, I think-. And then I’d be angry afterwards. But I did sort of thing like I was within my rights to tell them [laughs] just to I don’t know, be a bit rude to them [laugh]. But [sigh], but then I just, I think you never are because you’d rather not cause a scene, but I think technically if someone thinks they can say that about your appearance, then you’re kind of within your rights to just tell them to go away.