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Can anyone recommend spot treatment for teens?

36 replies

RedPandaWanda · 24/01/2022 20:14

Dd is almost 14.
She has started to get quite a few spots which are causing her a bit of distress.
There are so many spot treatments on the market I’m not sure what to try.
She is trying the standard Clearasil stuff but it’s not helping.
I am trying to clean her diet up with less sugar etc but I think now her hormones have truly kicked in the spots are going wild!

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belimoo · 24/01/2022 22:21

I swear by the boots tea tree and witch hazel range and know lots of people it's worked for. It's inexpensive too so maybe worth a try. I especially like the cleansing lotion and they do a concentrated serum which is great to dab on any individual spots.

tootyfruitypickle · 24/01/2022 22:23

@PAFMO's post up thread is spot on. I got dd la Roche posay and Paula's choice after reading about it on here and it's cleared her skin.

Loopyloulou007 · 24/01/2022 22:27

I bought my son acnecide. It's a benzoyl peroxide cream and face wash, so far, so good. Before that we tried chlorophyll , but he kept forgetting to take it, so couldn't actually tell if it worked. But the face wash and cream is working well, after that if it it's get worse while on it, will go to the Dr's, but noticeable difference since he started, only been a week, though

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RedPandaWanda · 24/01/2022 22:36

I may have to see a dermatologist privately. DS has been on a 2 year wait for our local dermatology department for a skin issue!

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2pinkginsplease · 24/01/2022 22:40

My dd’s skin was terrible and someone recommended a witch hazel stick from Superdrug. It’s in a turquoise tube -like a chubby lip salve shape- and it’s been amazing. Her skin is so clear.

It’s approx £4.

NotVictorianHonestly · 24/01/2022 22:42

Benzyl peroxide is fabulous, but a lot of people use it wrong. You need a very thin layer, applied at night. Then moisturise well. Be aware it will bleach bedding, towels and clothes so don't sleep in favourites and wash hands well after use.

That and cutting out dairy finally sorted me out after many many years.

nolongersurprised · 24/01/2022 22:52

I may have to see a dermatologist privately

My DH didn’t think it was necessary, because “all teens have spots” but it’s hard for them at a time when teens are already so self-conscious. We may have been lucky in that what she recommended worked within the time frame she said it would, but because of DD’s swimming I didn’t want to try a whole heap of bleaching/drying products that the chlorine might worsen.

madamegazelle1 · 24/01/2022 22:54

La Roche posay effaclar has been very good for my two girls skin. It is effective against spots but good for sensitive skin unlike a lot of the harsh treatments out there

ehb102 · 24/01/2022 23:14

La Roche Posay is incredible. Effaclar duo for drying up spots is the biz.

Two other things that no one has mentioned. The first is the oil cleansing method. Oil dissolves oil, so a mix of castor oil and a vegetable oil is brilliant. I used to use it. The other recommendation I have is Sebamed face and body wash. I think it's Canadian. Get it off eBay. It's 5.5 ph so brilliant for resetting overstimulated oily skin.

hopsalong · 24/01/2022 23:34

How bad do you think her skin actually is, compared to others of the same age? I speak as another Roaccutane graduate (eventually) but had four or five years before that with lousy skin. Not the worst cystic acne you've ever seen (and thankfully minimal scarring, beyond fairly short lived hyperpigmentation) but significantly different from the kinds of come and go teenage spots my friends have. Tbh, it has dented my confidence for life and you're a lovely mum to be taking this seriously and looking for advice.

Did you have teenage acne? Or any history of PCOS? In my case I think this is what caused it. My PCOS is otherwise mild, visible only on an ultrasound of the ovaries and not (in 30s anyway) detectable from blood tests. But it can really fuck with your skin. For me, I think the pill might have been a better treatment than the multi-year courses of antibiotics I was prescribed (wrecked my digestion) or Roaccutane which made me depressed and (I still worry) might have done damage to my liver, especially when unwisely combined with first year of university drinking! Of course, the pill is not a small step and probably not to be recommend for mild/ moderate teenage acne of under a year's duration. But could you ask your doctor (esp if she also has very irregular periods, though maybe she's too young to be sure of that) to run a basic test for androgen/ estrogen levels?

The best thing for now would probably be a tretinoin gel. Benzoyl peroxide is harsh stuff. It bleached all of our pillow cases and made my skin super inflamed and red, probably worse than it was to begin with. Of course, skin type varies. Mine is naturally prone to over-reaction (hives, super-swollen bites etc). You can order some of these things on the internet with a prescription provided by the internet pharmacy. I might try this, if I didn't have a sympathetic GP: https://e-surgery.com/product/treclin-gel/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI1KSu48XL9QIV9RSLCh2GFwHOEAQYASABEgLEoDD_BwE

Also, if your GP isn't sympathetic, change GPs. Mine was totally hopeless, 'you'll grow out of it etc' and in the end my parents paid privately, years on, to see a dermatologist. In fact the spots themselves weren't the end of the world. The worst thing for me (naturally introverted) was that embarrassment about the spots prevented me from taking part in a lot of normal teenage social life and some sports activities (swimming!), and this has (for me, perhaps unusually bashful) had lifelong consequences.

RedPandaWanda · 25/01/2022 19:42

hopsalong thanks I’ll take a look at that. Her skin was perfectly clear not too long ago, just the odd pimple here and there. Her skin seems to have had a big eruption the last few weeks, luckily not cystic acne like my mum had, which deeply scarred her skin. Dd is making it worse though by squeezing them every night (I have told her not to but you know what they are like at that age!).

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