Epuris: one year later...

Hello. It's me.

I'd forgotten that I had a blog and how it used to be

When I had time

To blog.

They say optometry school is easy

But it ain't been a breeze...

Got five exams

To study for,

But I'm running out of time...

Disclaimer: I started writing this post during the middle of exams, so my rendition of Hello doesn't apply anymore. But I'd say that's pretty decent song re-writing, eh?

Anyways. Hello! It's been over a year since I started taking Epuris, and if you've been following along, I've been off it since the end of September 2015; so I thought I'd post a little update for all of those who've been checking in to read about my experience.

Here's my background story: I'm pretty sure my acne started around grade 6, and I have a clear memory of having a really bad pimple on my chin in grade 7 when my crush spontaneously told me "You have a really big pimple" and I tried to pass it off as a bug bite. It continued on in high school, and then university where I started noticing that a) my breakouts loosely followed my menstrual cycle and b) it got really, really bad during the summer months. So in the fall or winter of 2014, my family doctor sent off a referral for me to see a dermatologist, and I got in to see her in February 2015, after getting started on birth control pills. And after some blood tests, I was given my first prescription for Epuris in April.

My experience was not terrible. My skin was naturally very, very oily, so Epuris' drying effect didn't desiccate my skin too much. My lips however did get very, very chapped, and the corners of my lips did crack a couple of times too. I also experience some moodiness at first when I started, but that subsided after a couple of weeks. And the last symptom I experienced was muscle pain in my back, between my shoulders - at the same time I'm not too sure whether that was entirely attributable to Epuris, or if it was me and my posture at work, because even since stopping Epuris in October, the back pain still hasn't gone away.

So how's my skin now? I'm still not entirely happy with it because I still have scarring, redness in some areas, and my face still gets shiny in the middle of the day. However, I'm satisfied with what Epuris did for my acne. I still do get pimples - most likely from stress and lack of sleep, with school going on - but they haven't been large, cystic or painful; and I haven't broken out badly (at most, I've had four pimples on my face at once! I mean, that kinda sounds like a lot, but compared to the amount I had on my face at once before, four is a really good number).

My routine has pretty much stayed the same - I still use the same makeup remover and face cleanser. I moisturize with a mattifying day cream, which admittedly doesn't do quite a great job at keeping me matte, but I like it for the SPF (I also use it as my night cream because I'm lazy - there are no negative side effects of too much SPF, right?). I also exfoliate at least once a week to promote skin cell turnover. For the occasional zit that pops up, I've been using a sample of NeoStrata's clarifying solution containing 2% salicylic acid, which I sadly don't have a picture for, but it has been effective, so I'm considering getting the full size product.

TL;DR: my experience with Epuris was great. I still get the occasional pimple here or there, but I'd say Epuris did it's job. Here's a selfie to show that despite the scarring and redness, there's nothing a Snapchat filter and good lighting can't fix!

Cheers!