All things considered, I'd rather have the zits
I know some kids have really severe ache that looks horrible and can leave bad scars. Fortunately, those cases are pretty rare. Perhaps the pictures I saw of him were touched up or showed him pre-ache, but he surely didn't look like some of the "pizza face" kids from my youth. Maybe the medicine really worked for him. However, if the medication was enough to cause him to become a modern Kamakazi, perhaps the ache wasn't so bad after all.