Acne Therapy：Isotretinoin (Retinol)

Isotretinoin is often used to treat severe acne, especially acne in pustule or cyst form, or recurrent cases after some oral antibiotic treatment. Isotretinoin not only normalizes keratosis (growth of keratin on the skin) to avoid pore congestion, but also balances oil/sebum secretion evidently to suppress the growth of acne bacteria (Propionibacterium acnes) , thus controls inflammation caused by it.

Isotretinoin treatment usually takes 3-4 months, and only 15% of patients will experience break out after three years, who have had bad lifestyles such as staying up until midnight. It will further worsen hormone imbalance (and affect oil secretion).

The biggest problem of isotretinoin is that it can cause fetal malformation during pregnancy, therefore patients must practise contraception (birth control) after stopping this medication for a month. That's why isotretinoin cannot be an OTC (over-the-counter) medicine, you need to conduct a doctor before taking it.

Apart from that, isotretinoin treatment can cause dryness on skin and mucosa, lip crack, and even itchiness. So I strongly suggest that anybody who wants to get isotretinoin treatment should focus on hydration treatment and apply lip balm to improve the dryness. Stop using oil control skincare ranges (do not think that "cocktail" treatments will solve the problem faster, YES, in most cases but not this) , it will only aggravate dryness condition (skin may start peeling off).

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