Coping with teenage acne

"Severe acne affects your mental health far more than some medication ever will." Sarah Wood, mum of two young men and a teenage girl.

Sarah Wood joins me on this episode to talk about her experience of teenage acne, how she coped, how she eventually treated it, and how she's supported all of her own teenagers through the same thing.

Sarah first got acne when she was 12 and she still has it at 49. But nowadays she manages it with medication, and talks about how important it is to get the right treatment for acne if it's starting to affect your teenager's mental health.

Sarah says that her own self-esteem took a double hit because she was already the 'clever' girl in school, with short hair - when the spots arrived, she gained the nickname "Zit-Slap".

She talks about things getting better when other friends started to get spots, and she was streamed into top sets at school, so the 'clever' label didn't matter any more. However, when other kids' spots started to clear up and hers didn't, she knew she wanted to do something about it.

Medication for teenage acne

Sarah told me about oxytetracycline, a type of antibiotic that is usually the starting point for medication for teenage acne, once you've exhausted lotions and creams.

Eventually, at the age of 40, she started taking Roaccutane, which all of her children have also taken at various times. Her son's acne developed from normal spots to huge lumps all over his face. Knowing how this could be dealt with, she took him straight to her dermatologist consultant and asked for Roaccutane.

Sarah thinks there's too much scaremongering around the side-effects of Roaccutane. They range from birth defects if you take it during pregnancy (women and girls are advised to have a monthly pregnancy test whilst on the medication) to dry skin, dry eyes and muscular aches and pains. It can also (rarely) cause elevated cholesterol, so tests are done to monitor this.

Sarah explains Roaccutane side-effects and how it works, and says that as parents the best thing we can do if our kids are struggling with self-esteem due to severe acne is push for a referral to a dermatologist, as this is the only way to have it prescribed, due to the monitoring required.

Where to find Sarah

Sarah is happy to talk about her experiences with severe acne. You can find her on:

TwitterInstagramHer blog Mum of Three World

Sarah has recently sent her middle child to university so we talk a little bit about the empty nest. You can get some hope on this stage from my episode on empty nesting.

More teenage parenting tips from Helen Wills:

Helen wills is a teen mental health podcaster and blogger at Actually Mummy a resource for midlife parents of teens.

Thank you for listening! Subscribe to the Teenage Kicks podcast to hear new episodes. If you have a suggestion for the podcast please email [email protected].

There are already stories from fabulous guests about difficult things that happened to them as teenagers - including losing a parent, becoming a young carer, and being hospitalised with mental health problems - and how they overcame things to move on with their lives.

You can find more from Helen Wills on parenting teenagers on Instagram and Twitter @iamhelenwills.

For information on your data privacy please visit Podcast.co.

Please note that Helen Wills is not a medical expert, and nothing in the podcast should be taken as medical advice. If you're worried about a teenager, please seek support from a medical professional.

Podcast produced by James Ede at Be Heard production.