I don't recommend Dr. Plotke for acne treatment. Am sure she's a great dermatologist, in fact she was warm and kind but she simply sucks at acne treatment.
It's taken me a few years to write this review because I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt that maybe it's my skin that's really hard to treat as opposed to her being really clueless on acne treatment. Well, it's been almost 3 years since I ditched this lady and my skin thanks me for it everyday. My skin is clear and flawless no thanks to Dr. Plotke.
I went to see Dr. Plotke for the first time in Dec of 2013. She did not touch me, just shone a crazy bright light on my face and said I had nodular cystic acne, a phrase I had never heard before in my life. Of course, I didn't argue. She went on to write me a prescription for clindamycin, doxycycline and trentnoin. She told me that basically beneath my skin surface is a pile of nasty cysts that need to be brought to the surface, which was why I needed oral antibiotics.she then warned me that my skin would get really bad before it gets clear because all the nasty cysts had to come out somehow. She basically made me feel like my face was a junk yard of cyst forming bacteria. Way to make a girl feel good about herself...This whole interaction took less than 5 minutes.
I believed her and followed her advice. The part though, about my skin becoming really bad was the understatement of the year. It was horrific! I had the worst breakouts of my life and for the first time I was depressed about my appearance. Each appointment was pretty much the same. She would spend a minute or two with me, and I would leave with an increased dosage and a big co-pay.
Several months later, the medication had burnt up my stomach lining. I couldn't tolerate any food and I lost a bunch of weight. Yet my skin had not improved one bit. Everyone was worried about me. I was worried for my health. When I brought this up to her, she recommended trying accutane. That's when I ran for the hills. Clearly she didn't care about me. She was not compassionate at all towards me.
I decided to go to the acne specialists of Oakland instead. They actually gave me a facial on my first visit. It felt great to have someone touch my skin without making me feel like I was disgusting. They told me that I did not have acne at all, my skin was just really irritated from using bad products. It took 3 months to clear the damage Dr. Plotke did me.
Please don't waste your time, money, and self esteem by seeing this lady for acne treatment. read more