I can remember back in the 6th grade when I first started getting acne. It was one of the most embarrassing things I have ever gone through. I remember believing that it would go away and that it was just a short faze in my life. Unfortunately, it didn't stop. I used to come home and cry in my pillow late into the night. I was a teenager when my acne became a reason for my depression.

My mom was the first person to see that I had a problem with my acne. She saw the downward spiral it was causing in my self-esteem and social skills. I was afraid to approach people because I knew what they were starring at was the pimples covering my face. They would get big and swollen if I picked at them and I would end up looking worse than I had before. The thought of people always staring at me kept me hidden in my room.

When I turned 13, my mom decided to do something about my acne. She wanted me to go with her to seek treatment from a doctor. The doctor first put me on some light creams and sent me home. I tried them and all they seemed to do was dry my skin out. They didn't see to alleviate any of the actual pimples forming on my face.

After a few failed attempts at getting an effective prescription treatment, my doctor became personally involved in trying anything and everything she could to make it go away. She determined that my body was over-producing oil, or sebum, which is common in teenagers going through adulthood.

At one point in my life, I just wanted to give up. It felt like nothing was ever going to work for me. This made my depression even worse. I recall my treatment becoming more severe and more painful. I had to get my blood drawn every two weeks while on one medication so that my kidney functions could be monitored. All because of acne! The pain that anyone has to go through while dealing with acne can sometimes be excruciating. People don't really think about we feel; especially those that can't control it.

After trying everything under the sun, even Pro Active, which was the hot ticket item on the television, my doctor finally gave me birth control. It worked. One of the standing stipulations to take birth control is to be on a menstruation cycle and I wasn't able to do that until I was at the end of my 15th year.

The birth control was effective because the birth control helped lower the amount of sebum that was being produced in my body. I didn't think it was working at first because my skin actually started to look worse. I started losing a little bit of hope but my doctor told me to stick to it and keep taking birth control (even though I wasn't sexually active) regularly as prescribed.

After a couple months of taking the pills, I noticed a definite difference in the way that my face looked. I now am a mother of two beautiful children and a happily married women. I don't have to take birth control anymore. My skin as evened itself out to where my natural oils aren't as substantial. Being pregnant also helped my skin to clear up even more even after taking birth control pills. One of the reasons I think people shy away from birth control, even for severe acne, is because they don't want to gain weight. I remember wondering if taking the pills would make me fat AND have horrible acne.

There are so many myths about birth control. Gaining weight isn't one of them, but I will tell you that the little weight I did gain was a small price to pay for the wonderful complexion I got. I know some people who were worried about scarred faces after having acne as well. I have some scars left but I now think of them as battle wounds. I battled acne for so long that I am proud of some of those scars. They're are not ugly and people don't really see them unless I bring them up.

If you have acne problems, talk to a doctor about being put on birth control. This might be a last resort for you, like it was for me or you might prefer to get on birth control anyways. Birth control was the best acne treatment.