Should i stop taking metronidazole cream?

[skintel]

So I took accutane 5 years ago and it totally screwed up my skin. Im dried up. I get inflammation and redness, too. However, I think accutane "thinned" my skin and just makes my normal inflammation and redness really visible.

However, my derm construed the redness as potentially early stages of rosacea. I do have rosacea in my dad's side of the family. However, i am biracial, and I never really showed these signs until after accutane. So it's confusing what my skin "should" loook like based on genetics and not accutane damage.

Anyway, I started using the metronidazole cream. Overall, there has been no observable impact. I dont understand how it works, but it seems to be more for bacterial growth from rosacea, but my only "rosacea-like" symptoms were blushing.

Anyway, I have taken metro cream for 6 weeks. I actually think , if anything, it has sort of discolored my skin a bit. I have extremely dry skin, and the metro cream seems to give my skin a little bit of a metallic shine (its different than a moist/hydrated shine). I also think it has done some weird "fine detail" changes to my skin's surface -- it almost looks like it has given me some fine wrinkling or scaling. And I feel as though it has made my pores even more pronounced. I feel like it does clean out my pores, almost like after applying benzo peroxide...but i have post-accutane permanent dryness/oil-less-ness, so I dont need that! Furthermore, my pores almost look a bit discolored. They almost look like freckles or something with a little brown tint to them.

Again, overall, it seems like metro cream is doing nothign, but i have a "hunch" that it is actually causing these subtle "negative" effects on my face..but again, these are so subtle and could be my imagination


anyway, I am also using ammonia lactate lac hydrin 12% and urea 10% creams. I began taking adderall last year for ADHD and i think compounded with the accutane from 5 years ago, my skin has developed some "keratosis pilaris" symptoms. my cheeks were getting REALLY rough and dry, almost like sandpaper. The lac hydrin and urea creams have began to smooth my face a bit. My only concern is that since i suspect accutane has "thinned" my skin a bit, the creams are "thinnning it even more."

Ive only been taking the lac hydrin and urea creams for 2 or so weeks, but I already am noticing some positive effects.

Basically, I'm wondering if I should stop the metro cream, since i actually suspect it might be making things worse....or is it helping me in some unobservable way?

Or does it seem like my symptoms are best suited for the lac hydrin and urea cream, and the metro cream may even be "getting in the way" of their work.?

[GlendaM]

The cream did not really help my face much at all. Metrogel 1% is great stuff. You can get a discount card at metrogel.com.