After products failed, I went to a fancy skin care spa to have my acne extracted by a licensed esthetician. I'd get an acne facial, which usually consisted of a cleanse, extractions and some sort of a glycolic peel.

The extractions did flatten the acne out, which seemed to cut down the time blemishes spent lurking on my face, but they left a more noticeable mark than if I let them go away on their own. This made my acne easier to cover up with makeup -- it was like reducing the pimple from 3-dimensional to 2-dimensional — and it meant I could spackle on concealer and (almost) pretend nothing was there.

That's when I took matters into my own hands — literally. I started picking at my skin. I knew it was wrong (any skin expert will tell you to avoid this), but popping the pimples that came to a head made me feel like I was doing something about my acne, and getting the "junk" in my skin out felt logical.

Popping did more harm than good. It didn't stop me from breaking out, and the ones that I popped left red marks that didn't go away. It became a daily habit, and I found myself probing and searching my skin for new blemishes on a daily basis.

Even with regular facials, my acne wasn't going away. I decided I needed professional help: a dermatologist.

Over the span of several months, I went to three different dermatologists. Retin-A (to unclog pores), Differin (to dry up active acne and prevent more from forming), Skinoren and Clindamysin (to kill acne bacteria) were just a few of the prescriptions they wrote me, sometimes without even taking the time to examine my skin. They were all about $30 each. The doctor visits were around $20 each with insurance.

My skin didn't seem to take well to the meds. The retinoids made me feel like someone rubbed a habanero pepper all over my skin. The other prescriptions made my (already dry) skin even drier, and turned my face red.

Seeing a dermatologist didn't help my case — in fact, I feel like their one-size-fits-all approach to treating acne actually hurt it. Some of them didn't even take a second look at my skin before scribbling out a standard acne prescription — even if I told them similar medications hadn't worked for me.

The last dermatologist I visited told me a chemical peel might speed up my skin's renewal process. Envisioning the clear skin underneath all of those layers of acne, I decided to give it a try.

My dermatologist advised me to get a glycolic acid chemical peel, which he said would exfoliate my skin quickly so the prescriptions I was on would work faster.

I started with a 30-percent glycolic acid peel and got one every two weeks for six months — 12 peels total. With each peel, the percentage of acid and time it was left on my skin increased. At four months, I was doing a 75-percent peel for five minutes.

The 30-percent peel didn't sting too much, but the 75-percent peel made my eyes water. Afterwards, they'd remove the acid with wet cotton balls and do extractions — my derm told me this was because, with the top layer of skin removed, the extractions would work better.

At first, my skin did look better and I had the highest hopes that I had found the cure. But after my fourth peel, I started breaking out again. The extractions were leaving me with red scars (which the derm said would fade — with more peels!), and my face would stay red for about a week after the peel — not a pretty look.

When the peels stopped working, my dermatologist recommended something stronger — a laser treatment. It was expensive, but as anyone who suffers from acne knows, anything that promises clear skin seems worth it.

I got the Black Doll carbon blast laser, a non-ablative 1064 nm Nd-YAG laser popular in South Korea and Taiwan and known for its pore-shrinking and dark spot lightening capabilities.

Even though my dermatologist used numbing cream, it still felt like the laser was melting my skin off. The whole process, from cream to zapping, only took about 15 minutes. They put on a cooling mask and sent me on my way.

When my mom picked me up from the dermatologist's office, she took one look at me and freaked out, because my face was so red. My skin looked like it'd been colored in with a permanent red marker, and that I had been trying to wash it off for days.

I was told that all of my current acne would just dry up, fall off and heal very quickly. That wasn't the case. First, I broke out in little red dots around my eyes and the bridge of my nose, which eventually went away. Then I started breaking out with little whiteheads all over my face — I had five the morning after my laser treatment, and 10 more popped up before I went to bed.

One week post-laser, my skin was much, much worse. I was broken out in painful pimples all over my cheeks and whiteheads all over my forehead and I looked like a red bobble head. It was the absolute worst my acne has ever been.

I went back to the dermatologist for my post-laser follow-up visit and she told me that the breakout was very normal (even though she had assured me that I wouldn't "purge" and that the laser was a lunchtime procedure) and that the pimples would go away with another laser procedure. She also suggested that I get a lemon peel to help "dry up" my acne.

Yeah, okay. I was definitely not going to put my skin through another laser procedure when it still so red and broken out. Three weeks after my laser treatment, my face still looked like a ripe tomato covered in acne. You could actually tell where I got the laser on my face because there were rings around my eyes and lips where the laser didn't touch.

My laser experience was really frustrating, and also a little heart-breaking. I had spent so much money on it because I was at the end of my rope, treatment-wise. I trusted the dermatologist when he said it would be good for my skin, and I was so angry that it didn't work. I was also angry with myself, for not doing the research about the procedure beforehand.

Two months after getting the laser, I lost faith in medical solutions for my skin. I figured I was being way too harsh with my skin (my face was still red) and I started looking into at-home remedies.

I tried a honey mask and baking soda scrub, which didn't do anything for me. I also tried oatmeal, avocado, clay and even kitty litter as mask ingredients. Clearly, I was desperate. Since literally NOTHING was working, I decided to get my blood checked and have an allergy test — I thought there must be something wrong with me medically to cause this kind of acne.

My blood test and allergies checked out, which actually kind of disappointed me. I thought if my acne was the result of, say, hyperthyroidism, I'd be able to pinpoint the cause and treat it, or at least know that there was a reason behind my breakouts.