Woman with 'painful' acne says 'it's just so many heightened emotions'

A 19-year-old woman who has suffered from "painful" cystic across across her face and body since she was 14 said she has been left frustrated not knowing why her most recent flare-up vanished. Harriet Curtis was bullied at school when the problem first arose, leaving her with red and “irritated” spots to appear in clusters over her face, chest and back.

Harriet was prescribed with a contraceptive pill to help and said that made her skin "really clear" for some years. But last summer, during her A-levels, she suffered another break-out.

She said she once more felt “so out of control” of her appearance. The NHS says there are six main types of spots caused by acne, with cysts being the most severe which come in the form of large, pus-filled lumps and which carry the greatest risk of causing permanent scarring.

From November 2023 to March this year, Harriet, from Haywards Heath in West Sussex, said her skin was the “worst” it had ever been, saying it was so painful she could not sleep on her side and she would not feel comfortable to leave the house without putting on “layers” of make-up to hide her spots.

Following a four-month trip to South East Asia with her friends, Harriet felt the hot climate helped greatly in keeping her acne at bay, but between this, effective gel washes and a change of medication, she was left feeling frustrated not knowing what the cause of her clearer skin has been.

“My face was so sore and inflamed, I feel like it even made my face look bigger because my skin was so irritated,” Harriet, who works full time at a Co-op supermarket while saving money to travel, said. “My heart goes out to anyone going through it. Until you’ve had cystic acne, you won’t understand what it’s like to not like the way you look because of something uncontrollable on your face.”

Harriet first noticed she was breaking out in painful spots when she was around 14 years old, which left her at the mercy of bullies at her school. “I had really awful skin… it started so abruptly with a huge breakout all over my face and from then on, I couldn’t get control of it,” she said.

“Along with my bad skin, I was also being bullied and they would use my skin for something to pick on – that was a really difficult time for me. It was awful for my family as well as I knew that my mum and dad found it to be such a stressful time as I was just distraught until it was all over.”

Harriet said doctors were reluctant to prescribe her with Accutane, a medication used to treat skin diseases such as cystic acne, because of her young age. Instead, she was put on a contraceptive pill which helped immensely in battling her cystic acne and in giving her a confidence boost.

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“It made a huge difference to my skin and from then on, I always had really clear skin” she said. “That made me so confident just to never have to think about how my face looked.”

With a combination of the pill and an antibacterial cream, Harriet’s skin remained clear until last summer, when she was 18, she experienced a breakout for the first time in four years which was “stressful” and “triggering”.

“I had a stress break out around May time – I was going through my A-levels and it was all piling up very quickly,” Harriet said, adding the acne was mainly spread across her cheeks and chin. “It wasn’t anything I couldn’t really deal with but it was strange having spots and bad skin again and I found that quite stressful and triggering.”

Following a few holidays over the summer, Harriet found her skin started to clear up again, thanking the hotter climate for her improved complexion but over winter last year, she said it “went downhill so quickly”.

“Before I could even do anything about it, my face was just covered (in spots) – it was the worst it’s ever been,” she said. “I just felt so out of control with it because I didn’t really know how to deal with having bad acne again.”

During this time, Harriet said her self-esteem was “really low” and she would later put “layers” of make-up over her skin to cover her acne, feeling as though she could not leave her house without it.

“I would layer my face in makeup every single day, I would never leave the house without makeup on,” she said. “It would be heavy concealer all over my face, I’d use lots of primers to get it to stick, lots of setting sprays and heavy powders where I’d pack it onto my face. I was exhausting myself and spending loads of money on makeup just to try and cover my skin.”

She also found it difficult to sleep on her side as her painful spots would brush against her pillow. “Sometimes I’d turn over in the night and it would be really, really, painful if my face hit or rubbed across anything,” she said.

In March this year, Harriet jetted off to South East Asia with a group of friends for a four-month travelling stint and believed the hotter climate and salt water helped to improve her complexion once again. Before she went overseas, her doctors changed her contraceptive pill and she also consistently used a selection of gel washes from SkinGenius while away, finding those to be of great help to her skin.

However, this has led to her feeling in the dark about which element may have been the most effective in keeping her skin spot-free. “I can’t really tell what has cleared it up, it’s annoying not being able to tell exactly what has,” she said.

Since returning home in July, she has experienced a handful of small break-outs but said they were “nothing major”. “I am really anxious for it to get bad again and if it does, I will just do anything to fix it because I just can’t really deal with doing it again,” she said.

“It’s so difficult to deal with, especially as it comes with hormones anyway. It’s just so many heightened emotions about such a frustrating thing.”