Thanks for replying. She never got any levels checked. We had a referral for that but she was always too busy and hates doctor's offices. I am taking her for a consultation with a derm on Monday. I hear he has a new machine that is used monthly and it cleared my friend's son up so we'll see about that. Sulpha drugs actually work very well for her. Bactrim, which is a sulpha drug, cleared her up nicely for a long time. Maybe I should mention that to him. I will also consider an endocrinologist. I wrote a long sob letter to my GP hoping she'd call me with an endocrinology appt. referral but she didn't. Sometimes I just want to bypass HMO's entirely.

I had acne between the ages of 17-30 on and off. I'm 50 and will still get pimples if I eat too much chocolate or junk in general. I'm usually pretty careful about what goes in me though. It's nothing that I can't handle now. My acne was really bad between 17 and 20 at which time I took ortho novum and it cleared me immediately. Within one week. It was a miracle for me. The OC's were stronger in the late 70's. I took premarin after I started getting migraine headaches on ortho novum and that worked for me too. Her dad had just normal breakouts and actually still gets them from time to time.

I find it frustrating that some people do so well on orthotricyclen and some other's do not. Some people clear with yasmin and some do not. A skin care consultant we went to swore to me that it didn't matter AT ALL which one you took and that they all work the same. I didn't try to argue with her. We're in magic month 3 of trinessa/ortho now and that's why I'm getting a derm involved. Someone needs to be monitoring her progress. She seems to be more patient with this process than I am bless her little heart.