My Journey with Accutane (24/F, started 6/Oct/09, moderate/severe acne)

I guess a good place to start would be how I got to where I am today, the "where" being day two of my journey down Accutane Avenue (okay, look, there's a reason I'm not a journalist). I can't remember how old I was when I started getting acne, but I imagine it was around the age of 13 or 14. I certainly don't remember it being an overnight thing, and nor do I remember it plaguing me in school like a promiscuous reputation (I didn't have that either, I'd like to think). I guess it started off fairly innocuous and manageable and continued like that into the first part of my teens. As a girl, you of course then discover the magic of concealer, which appears to be a small godsend not unlike finding a small wad of money on the ground when you're strapped for cash. And then, like some adolescent weed addiction, before you know it you're onto the hard stuff: foundation.

You start with the light gear at first and just apply more and more layers, and then soon even that won't do. You trawl the shelves in your local pharmacy for a foundation with better coverage and try a handful of different (and often expensive) products. Then the day comes when you realise that your head is bright orange and strangers have started circumnavigating you. By that time you're applying just as many layers of the thick, gloopy foundation as you did with the thin foundation. You go for a "colour adapt" brand in a vain effort to rid yourself of your luminescent citrus glow, and when you find one that makes you look like semi-reasonable-looking [albeit] pale satsuma but, on the good hand, doesn't cause you to peel or slips off your face after a few hours, you settle with it. For years. You don't let it go because it's about the 25th brand you've tried. Then you notice that your beloved high street foundation is in actual fact oil based (and probably part of a modern fascist movement as well) and that you're now 23, but you don't care and you stick by it like a loving parent of a murderous child (maybe).

Okay, so I've ranted somewhat, but foundation does play an important part of my life, as addictive, evil and exacerbating as it is to my acne. Hell, I'm so attached to it, I even get friends to bring me a hefty supply on trips to visit me since I emigrated from England.

Anyhow, as you can imagine, I tried all the usual topical and oral medications for acne. Some worked a bit, some didn't work at all, some seemed to work but the results were fleeting, some just kept it at bay and some were just useless. I was on tetracycline for the longest time, which had become annoying mostly because I'd been on it for so long that I didn't even feel there were any benefits up until the times I stopped taking it and my acne extended from scaring only people around me to also scaring animals.

I'll talk about the emotional effects that acne has had as well as its many practical implications another time, but all you need to know that after years of taking antibiotics, two dermatologists (one in Canada and one in England) agreed that accutane/roaccutane was for me.

And I agree, because why wouldn't it be? Until you've tried almost everything out there, you don't regard accutane with what I personally see as a desperation to go through anything and everything to achieve better skin. As I see it, bad stuff may well happen when I take accutane, but probably nothing too bad and nothing that I cannot handle. One thing is certain, however: if I don't take it, I will not know what it feels like to have beautiful skin or to live my life without the literally constant paranoia that comes hand in hand with this horrible ailment. So on balance, I do not for a moment doubt that it's a risk worth taking. If I don't do it, I'll definitely be miserable in this aspect, but if I do, I might just be changing my life for the better.

So, I've taken two pills now. I've briefed my boyfriend on a couple of things beforehand, namely that if I start to moan about having mood swings and fatigue, that's pretty typical of me at the moment anyway. Just today I ended up crying in private at work because I made a tiny, tiny mistake. It's stupid, but I doubt it's anything do with having then taken just my first accutane pill. I've also just started taking oral contraception, so no doubt my hormones are all over the place. I think this is an important issue, what with the potential mood swings and everything, because I agree with some of the people on here that have said it's easy to become more aware than usual of your behaviour and your body whilst you're on accutane, and then wrongly attribute these characteristics to the drug. I don't want to fall victim of that, because I know I probably easily could, so I've made sure the people close to me can remind me that I was definitely a bit crazy to begin with.

As things stand right now, I have two painful cysts on either side of my mouth, one on either cheek, about four older cysts by my mouth and on my cheek that are no longer painful, a couple of whiteheads and a generous sprinkling of red patches all over my face from blemishes gone by. I almost forgot to take into account the dozens of tiny spots on my temples because I'm just so glad they're always covered up by my hair.

*Sigh*

No results as yet, but then I've definitely seen no airborne pigs today either.