My RA Medication Gave Me Never Ending Acne — Then I Discovered Hypochlorous Acid Spray

I have rheumatoid arthritis, and I take a drug for it that causes acne (it’s Rinvoq, in case you found this by googling “Rinvoq acne.” My medication for a stereotypical old person disease causes a stereotypical young person disease. It’s that funny?

Google is so broken now the only way to get good intel is by adding “Reddit” at the end of every search

Unfortch, the medication is working for me, so I’m stuck dealing with perpetual breakouts. I keep thinking it’s passed, this was just a fluke, and then another one pops up. All these breakouts are confined to my muzzle area, so it’s not as bad as it could be, but I still hate it. I’ve been searching for any kind of breakout blaster that can work with my current routine (ZIIP and Tretinoin, mostly) and somehow I stumbled on hypochlorous acid.

Hypochlorous acid is apparently huge on TikTok, but since TikTok is make up of one million subgroups, going viral does not remotely mean all TikTok users are even tangentially familiar with said viral thing. It’s one weird and honestly kinda cool thing about the platform, but we won’t get into that now. The point is, I’m late to the hypochlorous acid game, apparently.

What we’re talking about is basically an antibacterial spray. You spray hypochlorous acid on your face and let it air dry and that’s it, you’re done. You do need to be sure not to use it along with a retinol/retinoid, or any other actives, as it will quite literally DE-activate them. As a devoted retin-a user, I spray my hypochlorous acid (I have this one, but from what I gather they’re all basically the same) on in the morning and sometime in the afternoon/evening, then put on my retin-a at night.

The spray is completely benign. You don’t need to worry about it getting around your eyes or mouth, and it has a barely noticeable, light, “clean” smelling scent that I find quite lovely. I bought a huge bottle on Amazon for $18 and I spray it with wild abandon, and I still think I’ll have this bottle for quite awhile. I’ve read that hypochlorous acid has a short shelf life, but that seems to be in a chemistry lab setting, and once bottled lasts around 6 months.

I’ve noticed a decrease in breakouts, and also faster healing post-breakout. I’ve also started changing my pillow case every night, and hopefully by using every tool in my toolkit, plus these new additions, I will defeat the RA drug monster that is rudely ruining my skin.