I'm not sure if I asked this before but here goes.
I moved to San Francisco a couple of years ago, at 29, and almost overnight, it seemed as though my once-beautiful skin became a mixture of dry and oily. Within a week, I developed subclinical acne, mostly around my forehead. I've always had sensitive skin, so any use of products for my entire face would irritate it even more. The thing is though, until then, I've always had absolutely beautiful skin: smooth, free of blemishes, with only one pimple which was a memorable occurrence given how great my skin always was, and most likely, borrowing my friend's skin care wash as a teenager during a sleepover and using it on my face because it felt good. Anyhow, when I vacationed in South America during my relatively lucrative time in SF, by the mountains in a more arid climate, I noticed my skin would mostly clear up. This past year, I've moved back to the desert. My skin got better immediately, probably because of the arid climate, but also, probably because the water is not nearly as hard here in LA as it is in SF. Also, a former roommate, told me that his dermatologist had indicated that San Francisco is one of the top areas for derms to practice in terms of how many patients they have because for whatever reason, skin issues are prevalent there-again, my suspicion is the hard water. Anyhow, even when I lived in SF and my skin was at it's worst, I'd notice my skin was worse right before my period, and this is still the case, even though it's much better. I still notice enlarged pores, and it's just not as glowing as it was just before my move to SF. So it's either my life in SF permanently threw my skin off kilter, or I'm getting older and my lady hormones are declining relative to the androgens. Hence, my thinking about some ultra-low dose birth control for the sole purpose of making my skin what it once was, only two years ago. I have a prescription for Ocella but am scared to try it because of the weight gain. I don't want to blow up, like 10-15 lbs, especially since I just had liposuction and I wouldn't want to gain in some weird place or undue what I'd paid for and took time to recover from.
Also, I've upped my smoking progressively, so maybe that is to blame too. I was dealing with some stress that I think threw my body off kilter overall, but it's a different kind of stress than I'm dealing with now. So maybe I can just forego messing around with the hormones, and try something different.
Also, a large of my tenure with perfect skin was spent on the East Coast where the weather is a bit more temperamental than anywhere on the West Coast, including SF where the prevalence of skin issues seems to be. So I'm leaning towards my imperfect skin being related to hormones; hence, my wanting to try bc.
Suggestions with Ocella or even, Spirolocane (?) which is something I've considered as an alternative, would be greatly appreciated.



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