I generally have pretty OK skin, but every now and then I get a nasty one. I guess this is what you call “cystic acne”: these occur because of a small, hard white plug gets stuck in the pore. The pimple will not heal until that plug comes out. It just scabs over and reinfects until such time as the pore releases.
Is there a way to get that plug out without involving a dermatologist? I can’t go whining to the doctor every time I get one of these, and I’ve tried the sterilized needle route and the tweezer route. I just cannot get them out, so they drag on for weeks and weeks until they go away on their own. Meantime, I feel the unfairness of having wrinkles and huge, nasty pimples at the same time.
Any suggestions from the legion of acne aficionados I know are out there on the SDMB? Thanks.
This has always worked for me (assuming I can keep my fingers away from the zit in question, at least).
[ol]
[li]Squeeze as much goop out of the zit as you can.[/li][li]Clean as well as you can with soap and water.[/li][li]Cover with an antibiotic cream.[/li][li]Let the scab form. Note that the scab is critical for this method.[/li][li]Leave the scab alone for about 3 days.[/li][li]Peel the scab off, carefully. If all goes well, the core should have attached itself to the scab and it will come out of the pore in one go.[/li][/ol] After that, it’s a matter of letting it scab over again, keeping it clean, putting antibiotic on it about once a day, and not picking or rubbing.
It might be worth trying out a prescription zit cream if your zits are so unpleasant, even if they are only occasional. Have you tried Retin-A or Differin? I had bad skin in high school, and Differin worked really well for me. It’s another retinoid - it’s related to Retin-A, but it didn’t irritate my skin in the slightest.