I started taking a new medication several months ago and as soon as I started taking it, I started breaking out. My face has cleared up but I still get breakouts on my back. This has never happened to me before and I’m not sure how to deal with it. My husband is a zit popper (as am I, when I can see them) and he will attack me sometimes and hold me hostage while he gets them… but that’s painful and kind of annoying. I’d rather they just weren’t there. If I can’t get it under control soon I think I’m going to stop taking this medication.
Oral antibiotics, over-the-counter acne cleanser, and/or there are prescription acne creams that come with a long applicator for the back, or you could one for the face and have your husband apply it for you.
Or you could try blue light therapy on your back, but that is done at a dermatologist’s office and involves several treatments and can be very pricey.
First of all, what kind of medication is it? Because acne is by and large a byproduct of hormonal activity (testosterone, etc.). Many people react uniquely to certain types of medications and simply changing the product may help.
Secondly, change your sheets and bedding often. If you are already doing it weekly, do it twice a week. This is very important. Sheets collect all kinds of dead skin cells, dirt, oil and all kinds of icky things that get shared with your clean skin every night.
Third, what type of acne is it? It is nodular acne (deep, large, red pustules) or more like smaller, white-head like acne? Nodular acne is best treated by a dermatlogist. Other acnes can be helped by things like changing sheets, showering often, avoiding oily lotions, using mild cleansers, and NOT picking/popping at the acne. And yes, antibiotics are a good option as well.
It’s mostly small whiteheads. The medication is called fluvoxamine. The acne started up pretty much exactly in line with me starting the medication so I’m pretty sure they’re related.
I could probably change my sheets more often. I don’t change them as often as some people because I take a bath every night right before bed.
I bet you’d be surprised at the effect it’d have on your skin condition if you changed your sheets more frequently. I say this from experience. I have had bad skin, on and off, pretty much my entire life (due to oily skin). I was skeptical of this advice when it was first given to me, but out of desperation I tried it. After about a month of changing my sheets every three days, along with other regimented steps, I cleared up quite a bit.
I’ll have to try out the bed sheet trick! I’ve had bacne for the past 20 years (thank Og my face doesn’t flare up anymore), and I’ve always been a bit lazy when it comes to changing the sheets.
The acne regime I found from [EMAIL=“http://www.acne.org/”] www.acne.org actually works, if done diligently. It consists of a wash with a mild, slightly acidic washing lotion, followed by a very generous application of 5 % benzoyl peroxide over the problem area twice a day, plus a moisturizing lotion used when needed to ward off dry skin. It’s also good to avoid sweating and pressure on the affected skin, not that easy when one’s back is the problem.
This is not a quick cure, but it’s affordable, relatively easy, and all the necessary medication can be bought OTC. Within a month, my mid-severe bacne practically disappeared. Sadly, stopping the regime brought the zits right back, and washing and treating my back twice a day gets a bit old, especially in the winter. But now I have a way to have presentable skin once summer looms around the corner.
Flamethrower? Gasoline, followed by “Flick-O’-the-Bic”? Actually, anything that will cause 3rd degree burns to the affected skin should work. A hot iron should work.
There are, however, a few unpleasant side effects.
I had horrible backne when I was a teenager. Years later I realized this was because I used greasy hair conditioner every night and wasn’t rinsing it away thoroughly (our shower had crummy pressure). These days, I will use conditioner once in a great while and it never fails to make a couple of pimples pop up, even with vigorous rinsing. I know this has nothing to do with your medication, but if you do use hair conditioner or lotion, you might want to give it a rest. Then you might be able to continue the medication without the acne.
I don’t use conditioner or lotion.
This is probably a dumb question, but… Are the people suggesting more frequent sheet changes assuming that the OP sleeps naked? Because I can’t think of how sheets would make an impact if you weren’t sleeping nude (neck, hands, feet maybe, but back?). What am I overlooking?
Well the point is valid since I do sleep naked.
You sleep with a shirt on?? I can see someone not sleeping totally naked but with a shirt? Just the thought of that makes me sweat.
I wear a t-shirt to bed. It’s more because of how I sleep, on my stomach, with my arms under the pillow. I hate the feeling of my own breath on my arm, so I wear a t-shirt to cover that part on my arms. In the winter I can arrange the covers so it doesn’t matter, but in summer I gotta have the damn shirt on, even if it’s pulled up to my pits!
Opal, maybe some Cetaphil cleanser and a back scrubbie would help unclog those pores? That’s probably the easiest thing to try anyway.
Panoxyl 5% bar, using a clean wash cloth or back scrubber. Easy to find in a drug store. Cetaphil is great but it’s no acne treatment.
Also, change your sheets weekly or wear a white tshirt to bed and change it nightly.
I have this problem, too, right at the top of my back. I think it might be hormonally triggered, because the last time it went away was when I was on birth control. No topical treatment I’ve tried has ever worked for permanent eradication, and it sucks.
Be careful with that if you have sensitive skin. (That’s actually how I discovered I have sensitive skin. 
It gave me dermatitis.) Use it sparingly/every other shower until you’re satisfied that your skin is all right with it.
SSRIs give me and my sister acne too (we break out very predictably, mostly on the sides of our faces, on the jaw line and under the chin, and our upper back). It sucks.
I had moderate to severe non-cystic acne for 12 years - topical treatments, and things like frequent sheet/pillowcase changes and never touching problem areas with my germy hands, helped control it enough that I didn’t look/feel disgusting, but the only thing that finally eradicated it were extreme lifestyle changes from the inside out (including going off SSRIs). Now I’m dirty and lazy (by comparison) and yet I have lovely skin. Acne is very much an internal problem, not an external one.
When I had acne on my chest and back I found the best way to control it was clean clothes and sheets, frequent showering, gentle cleansers, manual exfoliation, and benzoyl peroxide lotion. The last can be tricky, because it can bleach/stain clothes. As long as I was militant with my ‘regimen’ I had nice skin, but skip one day and I’d get pimples.
Are you me?:dubious: I am the same about not liking to feel skin against skin, or trapped breath. I also have to have anything covering me no matter what, even if it is nothing more than a swatch of a bedsheet :smack: I get acne on my chin in a couple places chronically, that area that would have lines for the mouth to move if I was a ventriloquist dummy. I know it comes from sleeping with my face on my arm [I sleep facedown]
Although now I also have the problem of my skin being hypersensitive, I use microfiber plush sheets as even high thread count bedsheets feel like sandpaper 
After you wash and dry your back, put on liquid anti-perspirant.