When I was just ten I started getting nasty spots and when I say nasty I’m not exaggerating either. They were big and angry and painful and when I occasionally got a giant one on the end of my nose I was tempted to wear a paper bag to school. In fact said spots even earned me the nickname ‘Spotty Dog’ at one point. Charming.

It was okay though, so everyone told me, the fact that I had such bad spots at ten meant that when I was older and it mattered I’d have skin like a baby’s bottom. Only that turned out not to be true, and it wasn’t until I was 20 that they finally started to disappear. My Mother has erased whole sections of my childhood having deemed the spottier photographs too unpleasant too keep. It’s like I aged 10 years in a day…

And now my poor sister (we’ll call her Stinky - that’s what I call her anyway) is going through it. The good news is that as a survivor myself I can pass on some words of wisdom to make the ordeal that little bit easier for her.

My first piece of advice? Unless it’s really serious, stay away from the more powerful drugs they offer you at the doctors. These can have several side effects, one of which is mild depression (just what you need when you’re a spotty bag of raging hormones) and another being dry skin, so you won’t have spots but you will have a peeling face. Great. Oh yeah and you can’t even drown your sorrows as the really strong stuff doesn’t allow alcohol... The only time I recommend these tablets then is if you’re starting to get scars, in which case it’s probably worth the hardship now to avoid having bad skin for the rest of your life.

Other tips involve the tricks and the lifestyle changes you can use to minimise the effects of the spots and their severity. For instance, by changing your diet to cut out fatty foods, chocolate bars etc you can minimise the amount of oil your skin produces. Acidic foods such as tomatoes can also be bad if you have acne so that’s another area to avoid.

On top of changing your diet you might want to invest in a face scrub or a product such as Clearasil. None of these products are as effective as the adverts promise so don’t expect a miracle cure and removing oil from your face just causes it to produce more (so don’t invest in any special soaps or anything). However cleaning your pores from time to time is important. What I found to be more crucial however was rinsing my face with cold water whenever I got sweaty. So if you’ve just been playing football or to the gym, make sure you splash your face even if you don’t have a shower.

For a teenager though it’s all about the quick fix, for me it was about getting rid of the big ones on the end of my nose. For that I’ve found nothing to be more effective than a dab of sudacreme or toothpaste over night; even if it doesn’t get rid of the spot it will almost always reduce the redness and so your embarrassment.

Other than that there’s not quick fix (no matter what the ads or other articles tell you) and you’re just going to have to ride it out I’m afraid. Just follow the above tips, stay healthy and toothpaste the bad ones… and stop picking!

Mack LeMouse

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