how to get rid of spots

Change your pillow case every night.

I used to have bad acne when I was younger and my dermatologist prescribed me roaccutane. It's heavy duty though.

I'd recommend watching your dairy intake as that can have an effect and drink lots of water.

Water will initially make it worse but keep going it's probably the best thing you can take for it.

Op, I was very much like you till 3 or 4 months ago. I'd tried everything! Clearasil, face wash things, you name it I tried it. I was always told once you hit 18, they'll go but they didn't.

I went to boots, asked honestly what will do it. They gave me Simple soap and a moisturizer. Use the soap every time you get out of the shower and don't wash your face with shower gels etc.. After you wash your face, moisturize but not too much. It cleared my skin up a great deal.

Once a week or every 10 days, I'd boil some water and squeeze some lemon into a basin and put my face over it with a towel for ten minutes and used a cleanser with cotton wool and wipes my face with it.

My acne hasn't cleared 100 percent but it has improved an awful lot. I hope this helps because I know how self conscious it can make you.

Also, if you have scars, get yourself some bio oil. Its expensive enough at about a tenner a bottle but is great for them.

The thing is if you are getting acne , it is basically your body trying to tell you something is wrong. You then have a couple of options:

1) You can go to a dermatologist who will help you cover up the problem with medication. You will probably stop getting acne but you will probably further inflame your gut with antibiotics and a long list of possible side effects.

2) Go to a functional health practitioner. They will attempt to get to the root of the problem. THis will most likely cost more money as you will need to get blood test and possible full panel hormone testing etc done. For me it turned out that my gut was inflamed and my gut was unable to process food properly. I then started a supplementation and diet plan which has almost cleared up my acne completely. Really happy with the results.

It could also be that your body doesnt want gluten or dairy or god knows what else. It takes some time to figure all this stuff out. Anyway, just my experience :-)

As above, speak to your GP. They could offer a simple but effective solution or if not refer you to a dermatologist. They will advise you on diet, cosmetics, etc.

If you have already done so and are looking for an alternative, Mariga Sheedy who runs skin essentials is very good and very passionate about her work! Her website is something like wexfordbeautysalon. Men and women attend her.

I had dreadful skin as a teenager and was very down and depressed about it at times. The solution was to roaccutane as mentioned above. Ask your parents to take you to your GP and request a referral to a dermatologist. It won't be an instant fix mind, there will be a delay seeing the consultant and starting treatment; and then a couple of months on the treatment where you're wondering if it's working / will work. The treatment is tough going, but it will be worth it. You'll feel better once you have made the GP appointment, that's the first step.

In regards to the other advice in this thread, bear in mind that you can have things in your diet / schedule / etc that trigger worse symptom outbreaks, but the propensity to break out to such an extent is because of a root cause that the dermatologist can fix. That said, these are things that have helped reduce or mitigate outbreaks for me over the years:

- Sleep: like most things, 8+ hours a night makes a huge positive difference;
- Perfumed Soap / Showergels: throw then out! Simple soap all the way;
- Water: should be your staple drink and LOTS of it;
- Stress: this is hard to fix, but if you can reduce or manage stress it helps in a big way;

As for dairy / gluten I don't know - it never seemed a factor for me.

Good luck with this, I know it's bad but believe me that it's fixable. Keep positive.