The one deliciously good side effect from having adult acne is finding zits in places you never realized could grow pimples.
Don’t go getting all jealous of my abilities to have a zit pop up under my bra underwire. Not only is it super sexy, it’s my super power!
My lovely dermatologist refers to them as “cysts,” but I’ve decided to name them after what they truly are: Surprise Buddies! Who doesn’t want something tagging along with you wherever you go, sitting just under your skin just waiting for attention where “attention” means “picking.”
I love my dermatologist and her out-of-the-way office during my quarterly visits where she tells me “this just isn’t working and why don’t we try this pill after we tried the last pill and the last cleanser and the last super-duper supposed-to-be-effective prescription wash and why don’t you try Accutane, OH YEAH, no, you don’t want to go uber crazy crazy head, so no, Accutane isn’t good for you.”
So now I get to try a NEW! and IMPROVED! and SUPER DUPER SPECIAL TIME-RELEASED EXTENDED PRESCRIPTION ANTIBIOTIC!
It’s so SUPER DUPER SPECIAL! that it costs $400 a month.
four
hundred
dollars
Lucky for me, (and really, why should the luck stop here?), the SUPER DUPER SPECIAL manufacturer of the antibiotic offers a 3-month-long coupon where I can get the pills for $10 a month.
SUPER DUPER, right?
The reactionary time for the antibiotics to begin to take affect is 3 months. So basically, I get to take this $400/month medication for 3 months at $10 a month for it to just start working and magically make my cyst buddies disappear, just in time for the manufacturer to start charging $400/month for me to continue the meds.
Here’s hoping I have the supple skin of a 9-year-old girl in 3 months, because if not, I’ll be living with the pock-marked, greasy, pimple-ridden skin of a 14-year-old boy for the rest of my life.
I’m just going to start preparing myself now to find Surprise Cyst Buddies! in brand new hidden crevices of my body in 3 short months.
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
i had some pretty horrific acne in my mid 20′s – fortunately it’s receded from my face (not so much from other parts though…). i can’t imagine paying $400/mo for antibiotics. ouch. i tried the (also absurdly expensive) chemical peels and debridement. pretty much it just hurt like hell and made me look like a peeling tomato faced freakazoid. i don’t recommend it.
the only thing that makes my skin look good? pregnancy. but then i’m a whale, so it’s kind of a no-win.
.-= MommyNamedApril´s last blog ..So, As It Turns Out, I’ve Taken This Blogging Thing More Seriously Than Originally Anticipated. =-.
while i was pregnant and nursing, my skin and hair was the best it had ever been. after i stopped nursing, the frackin pimples came with a vengeance.
At least you are doing something. I just keeping hoping that I wake up one morning and my face is all better.
.-= Mandi Bone´s last blog ..Sick =-.
i’m still hoping for that too.
I keep waiting for my acne to disappear. Surely I am not still going to be eighty with pimples am I?
.-= Kate, aka guavalicious´s last blog ..The Pacifer Fairy Cometh =-.
oh my LAWDY i hope not.
I guess my skin is too old and leathery for acne, but I do have all those lovely, purply, spidery web looking things on my legs. The Joys of being a Woman!
I’ve also heard a little sun, like what you’d find here at the beach, works wonders. You just have to come visit.
.-= Tara R.´s last blog ..A fine line between anxiety and excitement =-.
a touch of sun does help me, but with my family history of skin cancer, i’m paranoid. catch-22.
I have acne too, but I don’t go to the dermatologist and will likely never get rid of it. I definitely can’t afford $400 a month. My pimples pop in obscure places too, you know, like my back and chest. So not fun!
.-= AmazingGreis´s last blog ..Weekly Winners – March 7 – 13… =-.
i can’t afford $400/month either. i can barely afford the $45 co-pay to see my dermo.
Just wanted to swing by and thank you for your kindness on VU today. I’m honored . . .
Brian
.-= tysdaddy´s last blog ..Nape =-.
very welcome. sorry you had to stop by on a day when i’m discussing my grossness, but that’s not really unusual around here.
400 bucks a month? Damn…I thought I had it bad when the insurance company said they wouldn’t cover my hormone replacement therapy that costs 90 bucks a month. I will not be complaining anymore.
we should all move to france en masse.
I THINK I finally joined your savvy source group…not sure if I did it right. And yes, I am really THAT computer illiterate.
T
thank you, my loyal follower. you will be rewarded.
over time.
eventually.
maybe.
Evilly cunning trick by those pharma-boys. I hope it works out for you.
.-= Mwa´s last blog ..I think I might be a nice-smelling troll =-.
i believe you mean “evilly CUNTing”
I worked in pharmacy before I became a stay at home mom, and one of the most important lessons I learned is that there have not been that many advances in medication in the last 10 years, and the category with the fewest advancements is dermatology. Read the fine print on your new medicine (or feel free to send me a message with the name) and see what other options are out there. While many of the details are becoming fuzzy in my mommy brain, I can recall 2 “new” medications released in the last 5 years for acne that were the same old antibiotic that’s been available since I was born. The drug companies have just found a new way to market or extend the number of hours it’s effective and then charge you a monumental amount of money just because they can.
.-= Erin´s last blog ..Colors of the Rainbow =-.
Right. I’ve just realized that the acne I have at 32 isn’t normal. Wow. And I thought all adult women got zits (spots here in England) in their nether regions and under the underwire and on their scalp. Perhaps there is something I can do about this. Then again my happy pills may have something to do with this.
Thanks for the laugh.
I have struggled with acne since I was a teenager. When I asked my dermatologist how long I would have it he said until menopause. Great.
He started me on Spironolactone (50mg twice a day), which is actually a blood pressure medication that has clearing up acne as one of its side effects. I’ve been on it for 6 years and have stopped having acne problems. I don’t know if this is something you would be interested in, but thought I would throw it out there.