DH on antibiotics for acne and has been for over 10 years!

Your poor DH! I feel for him. Tell him to STOP taking that stuff!!!! I was on various antibiotics for serious acne for about five years when I was a teenager, and then accutane for a while, too. I credit all those drugs with the WORSENING of my acne and my health in general. I've been off all drugs, internal AND topical (benzoyl peroxide, etc) for a couple years, and my skin is A LOT better. I have also changed my diet pretty signifigantly, used a number of different herbs, and learned a lot about patience and self-acceptance. I still have some pretty serious break outs, and I have extensive scarring, but my overall health IS better. I know I have some digestive problems (due to extensive antibiotic use), and definitely some liver damage. I make sure to eat a lot of cultured and fermented foods, and take a probiotic supp daily. I also use several liver supporting herbs like burdock, milk thistle, yellow dock, and dandelion daily; along with an assortment of other herbs in teas and food. Another thing that helps me is doing some serious sweating every day, which I generally accomplish through running, but I also like to do facial steams and saunas. If the abx are *helping* his skin and his appearance, it will probably be very difficult for him to stop, because his skin is going to get worse. He has a LOT of detoxing to do. Just remind him that even though it seems to be helping his skin, those drugs are seriously HURTING pretty much the rest of his system. Also, if his acne is severe, he can experiment with various topical treatments, but I've found that it doesn't really make much of a difference what you do TO your skin topically. It's a matter of internal health (or lack thereof) manifesting itself externally.

I was in a similar situation--I was on antibiotics for a year (they'd been prescribed for about 10 years straight before that but I didn't take them because they either made me sick or didn't seem to make a difference)...I was also on cleocin gel, 10% benzoyl peroxide, and differin (topicals). I stopped taking all of them prior to trying to conceive...I also started a whole foods diet at the same time.

I would say at this point, 14 months after stopping all that stuff, my face is about as clear as it was with all the prescription junk (so maybe 95% clear), my back is much clearer, and my chest is clearer, although that's currently having a breakout. I really think the food change made a big difference (absolutely no sugar!) but it is really hard to say overall since I have had major periods of bad acne off and on since then--but I've also been pregnant and then breast feeding pretty much since then, too, and I'm sure the hormone fluxes don't help. My face was almost completely clear a couple of months after I stopped the prescription stuff, just prior to getting pregnant.

I do use a lot of natural topical stuff now--tea tree oil after showering, Burt's Bees tomato soap while showering, Burt's Bees herbal acne remedy at night, aloe vera and jojoba oil for a moisturizer. I highly recommend the jojoba oil--it mimics your skins natural oil so will help keep his face from getting oily and it helps with the dryness that the tea tree oil can produce.

Just make sure your husband is prepared for bad breakouts for a couple of months--it would probably help if he starts taking probiotics as soon as he quits the antibiotics, and also if he works on his diet prior to stopping them. Also, no picking! That was so hard for me but it really made a huge difference in the number of breakouts--for some reason they seem to spread if you pick them. The Burt's Bees herbal acne stuff really helped me with that because it wasn't too drying and I could put it on several times a day when my acne was bad and it would clear them up quickly so I wasn't as tempted to pick.

Anyway, hopefully this helps and makes some sense!

I think he is going to need to go off cold turkey . I would suggest some powerful probiotics as well. And a firm regimen of minerals, vitamins(especially the natural form of A)and probably stearign clear of any processed food or sugars for a bit. I would think after 10 years, he really needs to work on restoring natuarl flora and curbing any yeast growth. So, the probiotics and such would be good for that. he could also try a cleanse. I like the quick cleanse from ZAND. I guess I don't know anything about acne medicine, and can't understand why antibiotics would work