ORIGINAL POST
I am a 19 year old girl and I have suffered with...
I am a 19 year old girl and I have suffered with acne for 2 years. I have never had any cystic acne and thankfully don't have any scars. I would consider myself to have mild-moderate acne but it was only on my cheeks. Like i said it wasn't cystic and no scarring or anything but it was chronic! There wasn't a day that went by when i had no pimples. I have tried 2.5%, 5% and 10% benzoyl peroxide, salicylic acid, glycolic acid, sulfur.. I was on minocycline before and i also recieved a perscription cream with that but i forget what it was called. I also purchased a clairisonic and found that the deep pore brush head was way to harsh for daily use so i bought the cashemere head which was much gentler but still none of these were effective in treating my acne. Because my acne would just not go away and it had been 2 years i asked my doctor if i could go on accutane but he told me my acne was not severe enough and in my case the benefits did not outweigh the risks. I decided to try isolaz. This fancy place in downtown toronto was having a deal on 40% off packages that month so I originally wanted to just buy a package of 3 sessions for $445. When i went in i was told that for isolaz to be effective you typically need 6 sessions. I told her I wanted to just do 3 and if i was happy with the results I would do more but because of the deal they had that month it would have been cheaper for me to buy all 6 so i bought 6 sessions and after taxes it was about $925. THAN the girl I had my consultation with told me that she also had acne like mine and she had isolaz done but the thing that really made her treatments effective were chemical peels after each session. So i bought a package of 6 chemical peels for $450. I asked her about side effects and she said there were none. She said there was no downtime with isolaz and many clients come and get it done on their lunch break. She never mentioned anything about "purging" and said that she could not guarantee that this would give me flawless skin but that she could guarantee i would notice an improvement. Before my first session i had to sign these papers saying i understood their refund policy which was that they did not give any refunds. You could switch to another treatment but you cannot get your money back. I did not find isolaz to be painful at all. It feels like a warm pinch and for me it was not painful. After my first session and chemical peel my skin looked the exact same. 1 week later my skin broke out horribly everywhere (i decided to have 1 session of isolaz and a 30% salicylic peel evey 2 weeks) When my next session came around I explained that I broke out horribly and that my acne had literally tripled from when I had first come in. She said that was very normal and that this was my skin "purging" and bringing everything to the surface. After my second session when she put the peel on my face burnt so badly I was almost in tears. The girl had to fan me for about 10 minutes to reduce the burning feeling. My skin had what looked like white powder all over it and she said this was called "frosting" and a very good reaction. I asked why this didnt happen my first time and she said because i must have had so much dead skin the first time that the peel didn't get to penetrate deeper. My face was VERY red that day and the next day. On day 3 it turned an orange-brownish colour and was very wrinkled it than started to peel. It peeled for 2 weeks. When I went in for my 3rd session i was very scared to do the peel again and I expressed this to one of the workers. She told me that I had a very good reaction and I told her that my acne seems to be getting worse and has now spread to my entire face feeling very hopeless and desperate she convinced me to buy 3 sessions of BLU U (not with levulan) to have done the weeks between my isolaz and peel for $225. I than had my 3rd isolaz session and peel done. The peel did not burn as badly as last time and my face was not as red. My acne has now gone from mild to severe. I still have 3 isolaz sessions, 3 peels, and 3 BlU U treatments but I am really not happy with the results. I am half way through my isolaz and I have not seen ANY improvements. My skin has actually gotten 10 times worse! I have my first BLU U treatment tomorrow and than my 4th isolaz and peel next week. I will update this but with the severity that my acne has now reached I really dont believe the rest of these treatments are going to clear my skin. I am SO upset. I am a 19 year old university student and have been working part time since i was 15. i used my ENTIRE savings account on these treatments only to make my acne even worse than it was before. I have never written a review before but because this was so expensive and the results were horrible I felt I had to. I really hope i can help someone who is deciding to do isolaz please do not waste your money like I did, i know having acne is extremely hard but this is not the solution. I wish i could have the skin i had before i started this and my money back! I am probably going to go on accutane once this is over.
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