Question
Thank you for your question.
If cystic acne is not responding to oral antibiotics and topical benzoyl peroxide, oral isotretinoin is a good option as this is a very effective treatment for cystic acne.
Intralesional steroid injection is a good option to consider too for cystic acne. It helps to quickly reduce the inflammation and size of the cysts. This treatment can be used together with oral antibiotics or isotretinoin which help to prevent new cysts from developing.
Topical medications are the mainstay in the treatment of mild to moderate acne. Such agents work to control acne in different ways which have been well discussed in the acne forum that you may wish to refer to. Either a past history of response/non-response, tolerability or a therapeutic trial of 6-12 weeks will allow the doctor to determine which works and which do not or cause too many unwanted side-effects.
Hi, Benzoyl peroxide helps to treat the painful inflamed lesions of acne by killing the bacteria that causes them. If there are no more active inflamed acne, you can consider stopping its use. However, the non-inflamed comedonal acne i. e the whiteheads and blackheads which are the precursors of inflamed acne continue to form even after the inflammation has subsided, so these have to be controlled to prevent acne from relapsing. The best control for these non-inflamed acne comedones is the regular use of topical tretinoin or adapalene at night over acne-prone areas.
Get The Pill
Be healthier with our Bite-sized health news straight in your inbox
