One Cream, Growing List: How Topical JAK Inhibitors Keep Collecting Indications
Two are now approved, the indications keep expanding, and both carry a boxed warning inherited from a pill that behaves nothing like a cream.
Therapies, Procedures & Devices
Prescription Skincare
Tretinoin, hydroquinone, spironolactone, isotretinoin.
Articles in Prescription Skincare
A 30g Tube for a Whole-Body Rash Has Already Failed, and You Can See It at the Counter
Four fields on a prescription label decide whether a treatment can possibly work — strength, vehicle, quantity and refills — and patients are almost never walked through any of them.
Compounded Skincare: What a 'Custom Formula' Prescription Really Is
Bespoke medicine, or four familiar actives in one jar with your name printed on it? Compounding is genuinely useful and genuinely unreviewed, and the difference matters most in the places nobody advertises.
iPLEDGE Is About to Get Less Painful — What Changes, and When
The FDA approved the biggest reduction in isotretinoin paperwork in years, then moved the start date twice. Here is what actually changes, what does not, and the date that now matters.
Antibiotic Stewardship in Acne: Why Your Doxycycline Has a Time Limit
Guidelines cap oral antibiotics for acne at around three months. One chart review found the average patient who eventually needed isotretinoin had been on them for 331 days.
Cumulative Dose and Relapse: The Isotretinoin Number That Predicts Round Two
Clear skin arrives months before the course is finished, which makes the mirror the least reliable instrument in the room — and the most persuasive.
Isotretinoin, Start to Finish: The Course as Patients Actually Experience It
It gets discussed as either a miracle or a hazard. It is neither — it is a defined course with a predictable arc, and knowing the shape of it is what gets people through month two.
Vehicle Matters: Why Ointment, Cream, Gel, Foam and Lotion Aren't Interchangeable
The same corticosteroid molecule is meaningfully stronger in an ointment than in a cream — and the base it arrives in decides whether the prescription irritates you, and whether you finish the course at all.
Oral Tranexamic Acid: The Melasma Pill and Who Should Consider It
Topical tranexamic acid went mainstream in your serums. The quieter, more powerful version is a low-dose pill — and it comes with a clotting conversation attached.
Azelaic Acid: Prescription vs OTC — Is 20% Worth a Derm Visit?
One quietly brilliant ingredient treats acne, rosacea, and dark spots — and you can buy it two ways. Whether the stronger version earns the appointment depends entirely on what you're treating.