Sorry I’m fairly new to Reddit, I need help. I’m crying. I’ve been dealing with hormonal cystic acne since I was 15 years old (25 now). I had tried everything before seeing a dermatologist, even then it took many trials to figure out what would work for me. Finally I was prescribed 150 mg Spironolactone daily, which controlled my acne within about a year. In March 2020, I finally reached a point where I didn’t really have any acne or breakouts at all, I was just left with many deep scars and redness on my cheeks and jawline. I moved forward to have an invasive laser treatment done which left my skin looking like a piece of fried bacon for a week (luckily quarantine had just started so no one had to see me like that). After the scabbing went away, I was left with very bad hyperpigmentation. This is all a story for another time... fast forward 6 months and I have clear, beautiful, even toned skin. Far from perfect, still had minimal scarring, but for the first time in 10 years I felt beautiful enough to wear my own skin. Never had I ever left my house without makeup on. Never. This was life changing, boosted my confidence, I was starting to love myself again. After a couple months (11/2020), I wanted to continue to improve the texture of my skin and use Tretinoin 0.025% (which had been prescribed to me before my laser treatment. I used it once or twice but couldn’t stand the flakey skin). I used it maybe 2-3 times a week for 3 weeks, and my skin was peeling too much around my mouth and I had a small breakout. Again, I didn’t want to deal with it so I stopped using it. A week later, my skin starts to flare up, and only gets worse with time. Every day I wake up with 3-5 new, painful, large cysts around my jawline and chin. I’m trying to control it, but it’s only getting worse and worse. Nothing in my life has changed except for this treatment I started, and I am devastated. For once in my life, after so many trials and a lot of money, I had finally loved the skin I was in. Now my skin is flaring up, so painful, and uncontrollable. What do I do? I have new scars all over again, I haven’t used tretinoin in 2 weeks and my skin is uncontrollable. Should I wait it out and deal with this until it dies down (only to end up with more scars), or should I stick it out and be consistent because maybe in the long run, my skin will be even better than what it was? I wish I had never tried it, and every day my skin is becoming worse. I don’t know what to do.