acne pus and spot treatment.

[#1]

So a few months ago I've noticed that whenever I use clinique's acne spot treatment gel with 1% Salicylic acid on a spot or an itchy place or even a bump, the next day I would have a huge pus filled pimple in that same spot. To top it off, it is usually filled with disgusting yellow/green pus!   I can't stand looking at it so I would always pop it and result in a scar. After a few of these I stopped using it at all. Now lately I've started to use the body shop tea tree oil as a spot treatment, but it gave me the same results! This doesn't make any sense to me because I use to use this on my face before the clinique spot gel and it worked like a charm.  But what seriously irks me the most is the fact that many of my spots weren't even bad or anything at all, but once I put any of this stuff on, it actually becomes worse! Any ideas on why that is, and what I should do now? Thank you

[#2]

Gee, that sounds just awful! At this point, it sounds like over the counter topical treatments are causing you to develop pimples where your skin tolerated these products before. I'd recommend that you schedule a trip to the dermatologist, or if you can't get an appointment for months (which seems to be really common in some places), ask your family doctor if they can prescribe you some treatment. Probably you will get some form of topical antibiotic to control the bacteria that are causing the infected pustules as well as some form of exfoliant/dead cell remover so bacteria don't get trapped and cause infection. I've found with difficult skin issues that it is actually cheaper to go to the doctor than to mess around with over the counter treatments that don't work or make my skin irritated.

Good luck, hope this helps!