If there was one thing I was looking forward to about getting older, it was not having to deal with acne anymore. Well, Mother Nature dealt me a huge "screw you" a few years ago when I was about 33. Not only was I just starting to notice the beginnings of fine lines--SUDDENLY CYSTIC ACNE FROM HELL APPEARED!
First of all, I should mention that I've suffered on and off from acne since puberty. Then, in my early 20's, I was granted a reprieve from it. For close to 10 years, my face was beautifully smooth and flawless and I'm sad to say that I took it for granted. An occasional blemish popped up here and there during that time, but it was usually just a small surface spot that was barely noticeable, especially under make-up.
Never in my life have I experienced any blemish like the cystic zit, however. Almost always appearing on my chin, I can feel the damn things coming before they are even visible. A cystic blemish begins as a dull, aching itch deep in the tissue and over a period of about 3 days, the area grows red and swollen. Sometimes I get lucky and it comes all the way to the surface where it turns into a whitehead that I can pop, thereby relieving the awful pressure (I know, I know--many experts say not to pop them, but I always do it very carefully with a safety pin cleaned with rubbing alcohol). Most of the time, however, my cystic zits just turn into huge puffy red spots that can be seen from miles away. Some get so painful that I'll take a couple Motrin and apply ice packs to the area. After about maybe a week and a half, one cystic blemish finally disappears almost entirely, only for another to take its place nearby. Uuuugh!
I have been to the dermatologist many times over the last few years. Nothing they prescribe helps. I have even tried glycolic peels and injections. I've tried many over-the-counter things as well, like products containing benzoyl peroxide and salicylic acid. I have been in misery for quite awhile over these things. Indeed it is embarrassing to be older and have such an obvious acne problem. Mostly, though, it's the pain of a cystic zit that makes me crazy. Only one other thing helped until recently, and that was the birth control pill Ortho Tri-Cyclen. However, the pill made the rest of my body crazy (a whole other story) and I had to quit taking it. Within a week of quitting it, the cystic acne came back with a vengeance.
A couple months ago, I started saying to myself, There's got to be something else! Something that doesn't involve hormones or nine yards of chemicals. I was feeling pretty cheated by Mother Nature. Surely she must be confused. She should NOT be bothering someone MY age with this horrible crap--I'd had my turn with acne! Find a teenage boy to bestow this "gift" upon!
So, while dealing with yet another incoming cystic zit, I got on the internet and started doing some research. I wanted to find something more "homeopathic" and/or "homemade", even though that's not usually my thing. And hopefully, something cheap as well.
I was desperate. And there's tons of info to sift through in the huge wide world of the internets. Surely, this blog will only be adding to all of the info out there. Maybe some desperate person will find this and what I came up with will help them as well!
I saw on more than a few websites that a regular aspirin crushed up and mixed with a little water to make a paste can be rubbed onto pimples to bring the redness down. I also found a couple websites stating that baking soda is particularly helpful for cystic acne. I've always known about the therapeutic effects of aloe vera for skin conditions and I just happened to have some in my cupboard.
So, try this out, my fellow acne sufferers!
- 1 finely crushed aspirin tablet
- 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
- a drop or 2 of aloe vera gel
I used a spoon to crush the aspirin on a paper plate, then mixed it with the baking soda. I then added just enough aloe vera gel to make a paste. Please be aware that it does fizz up like a weird science experiment. I then applied the fizzy paste to where I could feel a cystic blemish coming up on my chin and let it sit there for about 10 minutes. I looked like I had rabies, hahah! Also, it created an odd sensation, like the feeling you get on your tongue when you dump Pop Rocks candy in your mouth. Except it was on my chin, of course, and it kind of stung! I thought, "No way is this going to work!"
When I washed it off, my skin looked a little irritated so I was even more skeptical. I went to bed and by morning, lo and behold, the redness was mostly gone, including the redness that was forming around the cystic zit! The pain was a lot less as well! So, I kept putting my new concoction on my chin over the next few nights. To my delight, the cystic blemish never even came close to the surface. It didn't stick around for even half the amount of time of its predecessors, which would linger for a week or more, aching and stinging deep in the tissue. With this new treatment, it was undetectable within a couple of days. I thought it was a fluke, but I've since tried it on a few more would-be cystic blemishes with the same results.
So, maybe I could've patented this but if ya wanna know the truth, I'm too busy to look into all that. I'm just happy that I might have found a simple cure for my own cystic acne, and that maybe I can help others as well! So by all means, spread the word!
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