Was pain or soreness part of the acne for you?

Yeah and [laughs] and it still is unfortunately. It’s just, you know just particularly nasty spots randomly breaking out – sometimes several, and sometimes only one it’s really, really painful especially with shaving as well, as that can be quite cos you’re sort of like, you know you’re chopping them all off which is really unpleasant. And especially if sort of you knock it or pick it or whatever is it makes it worse and it can be really, really painful and uncomfortable. But i- it’s notI mean it’s manageable but it’s definitely uncomfortable, so I much prefer not to have any, any sort of thing.

Could you tell me a bit more about shaving and sort of how you dealt with that whilst you had sort of active acne?

When my acne was quite bad, with shaving it was actually sort ofbecause I was breaking out a lot of sort of yellow-heads and not very nice, sort of looking infected, and with shaving it actually seemed to clear my skin up a bit because it, it got rid of all the horrible bumps and stuff like that, but that leaves behind quite bad scarring, cos I’m sure like on my cheeks and stuff like that there is a bit, and that’s probably is from shaving, and as I said it can be pretty painful. But yeah sh-, it’s not particularly bad except it does make yourcos I sort of had a bit of redness around my chin, and shaving makes that quite a bit worse I think. But it’s not, it’s not too bad shaving with acne except it can lead to scarring and a bit discomfort pretty much.

It’s made me quite happy that theythat my sisterI mean I’m sure in many families, probably even going just to cousins, somebody will have had acne, and somebody will have had treatment for acne at some point in their life. So, it’s a lotit’s really nice to have somebody thatand I mean even a friend or anyone, that you can talk to about it and that will give you advice, and that’s really, really useful. As or as, if you don’t have somebody then the internet is, you know just as good or, or may-maybe even better in some, some instances. So, you definitely do have support, and I haven’t found it negatively impacting any sort of relationship with my family because they know what I’m going through, and it’s not, it is onI mean it, it’s not really something for people to have an argument about really. May-maybe on the sub, maybe teasing or some-something like that maybe between siblings or something, but definitely nothing deeper than that.

Could you say a bit more about what you think maybe schools could do around acne for their pupils?

Yeah. I think it’s always quite hard when talking about stuff in schools because in terms of assemblies and things like that, is a lot of people don’t listen, and sort of zoning including me I admit sometimes sort of zone out, I don’t really pay attention. But I thinkand also with doing like workshops and stuff like that, taking out, time out of lessons especially in this sort of period is really, really difficult. But I think that for something like acne and something that can be so affect somebody’s life so much is it’s very important that you do maybe take some time out. Well that’s probably, probably at the beginning of the year have a workshop with people coming in and talking about acne and stuff like that, cos even now I know of a lot of people who have pretty bad acne that could sort it out themselves, and are too embarrassed or afraid to actually do it, and I thinkand it does affect their life quite massively. And even then I think a workshop, like an hour-long workshop, or maybe even in assembly cos it would reach some people; or like a newsletter or something like that, or promoting online sort of support would definitely, definitely, really, really help people.

Well I think the main thing isI’ve mentioned it many times is just go, go see your GP; go see a doctor, talk to somebody, go on the internet, whatever to try and get treatment because so many peopleand I know of so many people who are really afraid of going to see their GP to get treatment just cos they’re awfully, awfully embarrassed of their acne. And I understand that people are embarrassed but it’s something that the benefits of going to see your GP and the results of seeing your GP and maybe being referred, it can, it can be life changing in some instances cos it can change how you look. I mean obviously it changes how you look minimally, but if you have really bad acne it completely changes how you look, and how you act as well with your confidence and stuff like that by getting treatment which it always works for everybody.

I didn’t really know that much. I mean I was sort of eleven, eleven or twelve, or I think I was probablyprobably means I was still in primary school, or just, just coming out of primary school. So, I didn’t really know that much probably because I got it so early that maybe if I’d gotten it later I’d be more aware of stuff like that. And even with my sister with acne and my mum with acne, is I didn’t really know how like, how varied the spots you actually get are, and that they’re painful and sort of what to do about it, and that probably led to the reason why my acne got quite bad before I actually did something about it. And I think it sort of takesyour acne has to be of a certain level, and that you actually go and try and get treatment cos I definitely think even if it’s not that bad and it doesn’t affect you too much, it probably is worth getting at least some, some sort of cream or something like that, and if it gets worse obviously you go further and getmaybe get a referral like I did, something like that.

I think with the back and the chest acne it’s sort of, it’s harder to have topical stuff, cos if you have to put it on yourself it’s quite hard. I mean it’s not too hard but it’s, it’s different to having it on your face, and as well sort of topical stuff’s a bit harder to put on cos it’s over aespecially on my back it was pretty much my shoulders completely, all the way along there, which is a lot aa bigger area. So, topical stuff isn’t, isn’t as good I don’t think, so it’s better to take pills and stuff like th- for that. But because I only had a bit on my chest and not, I mean not too much on my face at that point, then it was fine to just put loads on my back. But it’s a lot better to, I found anyway, to take Roaccutane (isotretinoin) as the pill because that just, it basically just clears up, it up everywhere, and you don’t even need to focus on specific parts of your body or anything like that.

I know there’s obviously a massive range in how people feel about their acne. A lot of people, destroys their confidence I think, and with some people they don’t really mind too much. And the, obviously the dermatologists and the GPs know that whole range, and so they treat everyone as sort of like that their acne is a priority, which I mean in a dermatology clinic that’syou go there to get your acne sorted out and although it was sort of slow to get the appointment, but that was just because it’s quite a complex thing to do. To get the actual treatment was really, really fast after I got there, and obviously they make it a priority; they know that for some people it’s really, really impacts heavily on their life, so that they know how to get it quickly and so and I thought they were really helpful and really understanding overall.

I think it’s most people, cos you have a first course over eight weeks or something, and with mostit’s something like sixty percent of people, that’s all they need, but with the other forty percent it’s that, it’s just you need a second course cos it’s I think it’s just you have acne slightly worse, and you need to obviously take a second course just to make sure that everything’s cleared up, cos it works with your sort of layers of skin and by you sort of lo-you sort of lose layers, or like lose layers of spots and that’s basically how it works, and if your spots are very resilient and keep coming back then you need a second course just to make sure that everything is completely cleared up. And I suppose that’s why I started getting it the after the first course, it’s cos it didn’t clear everything up. J- so, on the under my skin there were still spots which then led to getting spots later, and then a second course and then having it all cleared up in the future.

So, was the second course something that you anticipated or that your dermatologist had told you to expect?

Eh- the I think generally I wasn’t reallyI’d, I thought that my courses were completely finished and I thought I was done just because my skin was completely fine, or appeared completely fine, so that’s why I didn’t really hear about anything. And then it started to come back, and I think the reason why I didn’t get it straight away and why it took me a while is cos my skin was completely clean, so it looked like I wouldn’t need a second course. So, it sort of like finished everything and that was all done and I didn’t, hadn’t seen my GP for a while, and then they started to come back, and then I had to go get it. So, I suppose if I actually still had spots after my first course it’d probably be better cos I would beI would’ve started my second course earlier cos we would’ve known that I needed, I needed one.

Well personally I don’t really pick my spots that much. The reason why my back got so bad with all the scarring and stuff with that is that it just used to get quite itchy so I just used to scratch and not really care. But I don’t feel much of a temptation for picking spots just because it’s quite painful and it’s not very nice, and I found that they come back worse and you can end with huge ones if you, if you have a cluster of spots and then you pick them all away, and it leads to scarring of course and you get more yellow the pustule ones from picking, cos I think the dirt or whatever infects it. So, actually I think the problems of picking your spots definitely outweighs the enjoyment you get from picking them.

So, I think you can get, like I was saying before, sort of yellow infected ones which are not particularly nice, and I think that comes from the sort of the sebum, or the whatever it is, the pus is, I don’t know conglomerates and scales over, and that’s quite horrible, and those obviously look the worst. And then you can also getI do-, obviously I don’t know the medical terms, but I know you get red ones, which are the most uncomfortable I find, and they’re really painful, and they’re sort of more like l-, sort of less of like a pustule, and more of like just a lump. Seems like obviously quite a small like a spot, and those are a lot harder cos you can’t really like break the skin of them or anything like that, and they’re really painful during shaving and stuff like that.