It’s amazing how some red bumps can mess up your day. Actually red bumps and their cousins, the white bumps and the blackheads. Sounds like a bad family reunion that partied on my face for too many years. Well decades.

One day at age 13 I woke up and the uninvited guests arrived. Just overnight, moved in. OMG! And I was going to be a flower girl in two weeks. I had no idea what to do. My mother got me Clearasil and when that didn’t work, Oxy10. I went to the wedding with my Jan Brady hair combed as far forward as possible. I hoped that by hanging my head in a mock prayer that no one would notice. Now, decades later those wedding party pictures reveal my innocent, but failed strategy.

Next came the mega doses of Tetracycline. That did help some but after awhile the doctor, or my mother, informed me I couldn’t continue that antibiotic forever and ever. Back came the zits.

I started to hear fellow-teenage folklore how to do this or that and I tried it all: sun exposure, gave up chocolate, bought every potion at the local drug store, lemon juice, oatmeal packs, change of makeup, picking, not picking, keeping my hair pulled back, sleeping on my back, and on and on.

Nothing. Zits were still there.

Throughout my 20s it seemed that there was a magical 2 days per month I would inexplicably be acne-free. Otherwise, I was a zit-fest. Of course I got better at makeup and powder to cover them, but like a stalker, they never went away.

In my 30s I heard about the prescription Accutane and I got a doctor to prescribe it. Of course my lips dried out completely and I was sort of drowsy/loopy but hey, my face was improving. I was given some sort of lip oil for the drying effect which I had to apply, oh, about every 5 MINUTES.

Eventually I couldn’t take it and quit that.