PCOS Acne | PCOS Matters: Enjoy a Healthier Life with PCOS | PCOS Matters: Enjoy a Healthier Life with PCOS

Our second question came from @youheardright on Twitter. She asked: “I’m wondering if anyone has had substantial success with clearing acne, blemishes, etc with meds or birth control pills?”

PCOS Acne Treatment

I have had experience with both.

In my teens the doctor gave me a strong topical cream for acne. I hated it. It made my skin so sensitive and itchy, and dried it out so it looked very flaky. It was a choice at the time between flaky skin or acne so I chose acne.

I had a better result with the BCP. If your acne is fairly minor any birth control pill can help just by balancing your hormones. However, some pills are designed to help acne more than others, and these can be quite strong. I had great success with a pill called Dianette (its generic name is Diane and it contains the active ingredients cyproteronacetate and ethinyl estradiol), but I wasn’t happy about being on medication for such a long time and I am now no longer on any PCOS medication (I do suffer still from spots especially around my TOM but not the same acne of my teens and 20s).

If you have the kind of acne that knocks your confidence so much you don’t even want to leave the house then go and see your doctor and see what they prescribe. Due to your PCOS they are most likely going to try to tackle both problems by offering the BCP (as long as you do not suffer from high blood pressure).

But, my advice is to tackle the root of the problem – the PCOS – naturally in order to improve all your symptoms, or if you can’t wait that long to get rid of your acne, start with using a natural approach to dealing with acne like Acne No More™.

Photo printed courtesy of Mark Skipper on Flickr under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

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