how I got rid of my ACNE after 8 years - ONLY thing worked

If drinking more water, exercising more, sleeping more, reducing stress, or generally the tips that people give you on YouTube didn't work for you then this video is for you. Hi, guys, it's me Ruri. Today, I'm back with another very requested video. Just because I'm Asian and have clear skin, a lot of people think that my clear skin is something genetic. I struggled with acne for over eight years. I'm currently 20 now, and I got my first acne when I was 12. Ever since then, I struggled so freaking much with acne, and now, after eight years, finally, I cleared my skin. As you can see, my skin is glowing. I mean, I hope so!

Today, I'll split this video into four parts. We'll be talking about my acne background, what did work, what didn't work, and how I did clear my skin. Everything will be time-stamped down in the description below, so check it out and don't lose time. So let's get started!

Firstly, let's talk about my acne background and let's talk about the acne type that I had. The acne type that I had, according to my dermatologist, was something hormonal plus caused by stress. If you don't know, I'm a medical student and from my childhood, I always wanted to become a doctor. In my middle school, I was visiting a private middle school; I had 50 to 75 percent off scholarship because I had so good grades. In high school, I went to my dream high school, which is one of the best high schools in Turkey. I'm not saying this to brag about my grades or whatever, but from my childhood, I was always stressed to get good grades. I was stressing myself so freaking much because I had so high expectations for myself, and I was always making myself stressed. So it, of course, affected my skin. As you can see, my skin was so, so freaking bad.

I tried so, so, so many things to cure this acne that we are about to talk about. If you ever searched on YouTube about how to get clear skin, you'll probably hear from YouTubers who have a glass skin. They always say drink more water, exercise more, change your diet, etc. So let's talk about those. Drinking more water—I actually tried drinking more than two liters for six months, and now the only thing that changed was the frequency that I went to the toilet.

And the second one is changing diet. I tried eating super healthy, I went even vegetarian, I also went vegan, but those things didn't clear my skin as well. Third one, exercising more: I was exercising 30 to 60 minutes five times a week, approximately doing cardio, weight lifting, and stretching yoga, and a bunch of stuff. However, it didn't clear my skin as well. I tried going to bed every single day at 9:00 PM for six months or so, and I was waking up around 5, 5:30 AM-ish. I tried that as well, but it didn't clear my skin as well.

After trying these fancy stuff out there, I said, "Okay, there was something wrong with me." I visited several dermatologists, and I used their medication. I used their creams, I used the stuff that they gave to me, but nothing worked. Like literally nothing worked for me. I couldn't find a dermatologist who was actually caring about my acne, not the amount of money I paid to them. I just said, "Okay, dermatologists are not caring about my acne; the only thing that takes care is my money." I stopped visiting my dermatologist, and that day I became a skincare [ __ ]. I tried every single product that you can ever imagine on the market, and not only in the Western market but also in the Asian skincare market. I found a lot of good products that worked for my skin, but those effects were not long-term. All of the effects that I had were very short-term, and my acne came back every time my period came.

One day, when I was scrolling through YouTube, I saw a video from a Japanese dermatologist, Tamori Arata, who is one of my favorite YouTubers slash dermatologists out there. She was telling in one of her videos that skincare is something supplementary, and you cannot cure your skin problems with your skincare. If you have acne, you cannot completely clear it with skincare; you have to go to a dermatologist and whatever they prescribe to you.

Okay, so now let's talk about how I cleared my skin. I found a super, super nice dermatologist, and I went to his clinic. Then he looked into my skin, and I talked about my acne background. We decided to start a medication called Accutane or isotretinoin, as some people call it, or Accutane. Accutane is a serious drug prescribed by dermatologists. You shouldn't be using Accutane if your dermatologist didn't prescribe it to you. You shouldn't, you shouldn't because it's a very, very, very serious drug. Accutane is intense! Here, I'll put the side effects of Accutane.

However, let me read some of the scary side effects of Accutane: depression, headaches, hair loss, neurological symptoms, vision problems, nosebleed, rapid breakdown of muscle tissue, blood disease, and a lot of, lot of scary side effects. It's a very scary drug, and it's pretty intense. But my dermatologist said, "You tried everything but nothing worked for you, so this is the last solution that you can use, and let us try."

Here is my Accutane journey. Accutane has different milligrams depending on your situation of your acne; the milligrams that you take differ. For me, for example, we started with 20 milligrams and then we increased to 40 milligrams. When we started to use 40 milligrams, I literally was feeling so depressed, so we decreased to 20 milligrams. Okay, so the first two months of the Accutane intake are over. Now we're moving to the third month. I think my skin got much more clearer, but look at my skin! My lips are so crusty, and they're all the time so freaking dry that it hurts. I put a lip balm on it, but it still hurts, especially when I eat something spicy. My lips so freaking hurt, like look at those lips! They look pretty weird. Also, whenever I apply a lipstick, it looks horrible, so I only apply lip gloss.

And yeah, this is my skin. I think my skin looks much more better, especially my acne scars. I'm currently using Tamanu oil; I'm continuing to use it every single day. I think it really helps with the scars. Yeah, this is the end of the month! Look at this huge forehead!

Let's talk about the mental and physical side effects of this Accutane. So firstly, my back pain is so freaking bad. I mean, my back is always hurting like a grandma, and I'm just like, "Ah, tired all the time." I'm not really motivated, but I wouldn't recommend for somebody who is going to take a very important exam during like the exam season to take this medication because it's real—like all the time, like so drowsy, you know? Like I want to sleep so bad, and I just miss my bed every single minute of the day. So yeah, that's the effect.

I don't have any other side effects than the tiredness and the back pain. Also, whenever I do a workout, my muscles hurt so much. The muscle pain is also pretty intense. But, you know, at the end of the day, your skin is getting clearer and clearer, which really helps with the intake of the medication. So I'm really looking forward to finishing Accutane and having baby skin!

Okay, so I just entered the fourth month. As you can see, my skin got cleared so much, but my lips are super, super, super crusty. The thing that I don't understand is that I knew the side effects of Accutane are like really crusty lips, but why my upper lip, especially here, is getting this crusty? I just don't understand it. I thought my lips are here, not here. As you can see, my lips are bleeding; it hurts quite a lot, and you can see my acne scars. Overall, I think my skin looks much more brighter.

When it comes to the side effects, let me say that yes, when you compare the other months, I'm more lethargic and I'm more sleepy. But I kind of like stopped working out. When you take Accutane, after every single workout you've done, you get so sore and you couldn't move for a couple of days. So I just kind of quit running. Instead of that, I'm walking, and I'm also doing more low impact workouts here and there. But most of the time, I just do like random squats and random leg lifts during my study sessions.

And yeah, that's what I do right now. I'm not really active, but I think my body kind of needs to rest a little bit. Generally, I'm pretty lethargic, but you know, I don't have motivation. But I've never had motivation. So I hope my acne scars will disappear, but overall, I'm pretty satisfied.

So, I'm currently on my sixth month, and as you can see, I still have some acne scars. Here, I have a blemish; my skin is definitely not perfect, but I think it looks decent. As for my mental state, I'm feeling okay. My lips are kind of dry a bit. Mentally, I don't have any problems with motivation or I don't feel depressed at all. I'm super energetic, and I'm super positive towards life.

Yeah, it's the sixth month of Accutane. I kind of got used to its side effects, like dry lips, dry skin, and sensitive skin overall. But I'm feeling good, and the only thing that I regret is not starting Accutane earlier.

I'm not encouraging you to start Accutane; I'm encouraging you to visit a dermatologist. Accutane is a serious drug, and you should definitely visit dermatologists in order to use that. Don't ever start it on your own. If you've visited a couple of dermatologists and they weren't really caring about your skin, don't give up. Visit another dermatologist. Don't try weird methods that you saw on YouTube or on social media, whatever. Just visit a dermatologist and ask them what you can do about your skin.

I hope you guys enjoyed this video! I get a lot of DMs about my skincare. Even though I said skincare will not cure your skincare problems, it's something supplementary. You should supply your skin with a good, proper skincare. If you liked this video, you'll probably like my skincare routine video, which I'll put here so that you can watch that video as well. And if you enjoyed this video, let's see my next video. Bye!