To be honest, just stay positive liek you are. The first two months are gonna suck hefty balls, but from then on it gets easier. Im just startingg the third month (about) and I wont like the first month was going decently but the second month was the IB (wich i was suprised because i have had IB so many times due to the fact ive been on TONS of medz), but even now im still breaking out a little bit. The derm told me today that third month is where like 90 percent of his patients start getting better.

DAY 4!

wow. this is so surprising!
so i stayed up all last night writing the stupid paper in front of a blinding computer screen with a pretty hard chair (uncomfortable to the max!) and i thought...uh oh, my skin is gonna be so crappy tomorrow because i'm not sleeping!

so i pinned all my hair back, took out my evian mister, 2.5% BP, 2% SA, and HIAJ and randomly applied it all over my face every half hour or so
and took 20 minute naps every 2 hours with my head tilted backwards so gravity would pull any bags under the eyes back into the skin...and what do you know:

MY SKIN IS SO SMOOTH!!!
all the forehead bumps like...died or something! and left little brown nasties in their place but those can easily be handled by some concealer

and my face started peeling...that's probably from the tane because my elbows were so crunchy this morning haha.

so i went to school with just concealer and powder and blush and lip gloss and curled my lashes and i guess that is still a lot but my skin felt good today! definitely not as oily as usual which is a welcome change

this could be the tane working early...or maybe this is all because i ate a whole jar of nutella last night? or maybe because i had like...6 fish oil pills (i was so glad i could swallow such big pills that i just kept on going! heehee) my skin is weird both extremes within 2 days...wonder what it will be like tomorrow!

but yayyy! no new zits or anything! and tomorrow is friday!

Hey, ciaobella!

Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, good luck on accutane! Welcome to the club! I've been on it for... 42 days now. Trust me, time starts to fly! You seem to have an amazing attitude about all this. We all could stand to be a little more like you. Totally agree w/ you bout' the makeup thing. Seriously, I'll put on mascara & eyeliner but it looks terrible w/out pretty skin. Total bummer, but in a few months we'll be more gorgeous than ever! I'm 14 and know exactly what you mean about the high school thing. I go to a "gifted" school and all kids there are filthy rich (haha, seems like I'm the only one who isn't) and everyone has PERFECT skin. It's terrible. But I figure in a few months I'll have better skin than all of them. Muhaha! And they'll never see it coming! *evil grin*

~*Lauren*~

yay for clear skin! glad it was a good day!!

Hey fellow accutane people :]

I'm new to this website so i have nooooo idea how to use it lol. I began accutane on Dec 23, 2008 and am now in my third month. My acne was really severe cystic acne and it was painful and hurt and i cried almost every night. I know this sounds bad but the acne gets a lot worse when you first go on it because oil glands begin to close and get all the yucky stuff out ewwww! lol But i promise it gets better just with severe dryness lol heres some tips i find useful that people haven't already posted

stay away from:
-cigarettes (big tribute to acne problems for many people it clogs pores and is bad with birth control)
-soft drinks dehydrate you and on accutane you need to be super hydrated!
-greasy foods create worse acne

following help a lot:
-WATERRRRRR :]
-when you get out of the shower pat your skin dry and apply baby oil to your skin and lips then pat extra oil off, this will help the dry skin exxxxxtremely well
-cerave lotion is really moisturizing and isn't sticky or smelly
-l'oreal professional intense repair shampoo and conditioner its super super moisturizing its found in most salons
-don't shampoo your hair more then 2-3 times a week because your hair becomes extremely dry and will possibly fall out use cold water to keep hair strong and leave about a penny size amount in the hair and do not rinse it out! lol it helps trusttttt me


Hope this helps and if you need anything message me right away im here and if anyone needs a little moral support when their on this!! :]

hey there bella!

I just wanted to say that I agree with what other users have said: you have an amazing attitude--you don't depress yourself over your acne (which I have done a billion times!) and I wanted to give you thumbs up for that.... YOU GO GIRL!!

Keep us posted!

*ABBRACCI* (Hugs)

DAY 5!

it's friday! yay!
well not so much, no crazy parties tonight because tomorrow is SAT day!
so i am going to bed right after i post this
looking forward to sleep-in sunday too! lots of sleep = glowy-er skin = happier meee

so once again, i am totally surprised!
i woke up this morning and my face was a little sore because i have 3 new cysts growing on my upper left forehead and they're starting pretty deep! which means they'll be in their red, white tipped glory in about a week or so...the ones from my pre-accutane days are about to sprout now even though they were so smooth and cooperative yesterday!
so lying in bed i was being a grouch about my face, but then when i went to my bathroom i saw that my skin was flaking all over!
i never thought i'd be happy about flakes, but i was so glad my skin was so dry and anti-oily!
in some parts it was so dry that i took my tweezers and like...pulled off strips of skin, kind of like a mummy (eww we read about people eating powdered mummies in history today it was sooo gross no offense to anyone who still eats mummies but that is like cannibalism like hannibal! haha)

so instead of my makeup oozing off by the end of the day it sort of flaked off lol
aquaphor is like my new best friend---funny story, i was carrying my tube in my school bag today and this kid looked through it, pulled out the tube, and said really loudly "what the heck is this? what are you lubing up for? doesn't this stuff hurt your vag???" hahaha!

OH and also, i have this pimple on my boob! which is so weird! hopefully it'll be gone by spring break next next week so i won't have to worry about it popping on someone at the beach

hey lauren! haha thank you!
we will have the most amazing skin ever, all the snooty richies will get so jealous they'll ask their parents for...face transplants! (haha...is that even possible??)

emily! thank you for all the tips! i was beginning to worry i would end up losing my hair but i will follow your advice as best i can

kaelyn buddybuddy! thank you i'm glad too! hope your course is going well!

hey efitalian82! so guess what...we took an optimism vs. pessimism test today in psychology and it turns out i am an intense pessimist (???) i'm glad i'm not coming off as one though! heehee haha i am soooo gonna use that word from now on...italian is like the Giselle Bundchen of languages

goodnight everyone!

DAY 6!

quick update before heading out party at 10! (work tomorrow is gonna be hell, but whatever! fun is fun!)
the 3 cysts i was talking about yesterday actually surfaced today!
that's a new record for production time haha.
the already existing ones disappeared, but left brown marks in their place, which sucks, but i can handle that
no new blackheads in my nose! probably because it's been peeling like craaazy so the blackheads have just been rolling out on their own...how convenient!
no new cysts anywhere!

my lips look (and feel) like i've kissed a cactus or something! they're all raw and people were giving me dirt about making out too much today which is kinda ironic, haven't kissed anyone for a while now lol. seeing Cute Boy tomorrow though, who knows?

my face is still flaky, but more under control now that i've stopped using HIAJ and completely switched to Clinique Moisture Surge gel as a moisturizer.
wow. my skin changes fast.
i've noticed that with swimming too! one day of not practicing, everything gets loose, but after only one hard practice i get soooo much faster! maybe i am a fast adjuster? heehee.

one more week of school until spring break!
hopefully my skin will be more manageable by beach time!
well knowing chicago, it'll be mid 40s AGAIN next week, but maybe we'll drive down to florida again this year? (where i will NOT tan at all!! even though i need to, i am so pasty nowadays)

Good luck on your journey..

DAY 7-8!!!

hey everyone!
sorry no update yesterday...forgot i had so much homework and spent all of sunday night working working working! i've hit the one week mark...and i'm still alive so i'm happy

so i've experienced yet another first with my skin...my face is SO RED!! well as red as i can get, not like ginger red. it definitely doesn't even match my neck anymore, haha! and all the brown spots are soooo brown and noticeable!
makeup doesn't even cover it up anymore
oh well, 4 days of school left then i get a week off to pamper my skin
i decided not to go to florida because the threat of brown spots getting darker and maybe permanent (?) scares me heehee. good thing there's a lot of outdoor malls...maybe i can still get a spring break glow from self tanner
i'm getting all these zits in my eyebrows which i should be thankful for are not cystic but they are a pain to deal with (literally! haha)

so i went to school today WITHOUT ANY CHAPSTICK at all oh my god i thought i could never smile again in my life! they were sooo painful! so during lunch i dropped by Walgreens and picked up some little drugstore goodies:
-small tub of Nivea Creme (for my purse) because my elbows are gonna turn some pretty funky colors if they keep cracking like that!
-Blistex Medicated Mint chapstick because they were so red and flaky and dry people were getting scared
-VITAMIN WATER because that stuff is genius!
-advil, because some people are just so stupid!

well tomorrow is finally gonna be warm...70 degrees! (and then next week is back to 40s lol) but i'm so excited and i've pulled out a summer dress and flip flops
hopefully the sunshine won't cause issues for my skin!

haha, i'm terrified of leaving without chapstick while i'm on my course so my purse is already stocked with like a million different kinds of chapsticks. somet aht work well and my ultra emergency ones that suck, but will help some. i lose a chapstick a day, i think.
and eyebrow zits suck :[ it always makes me look like i don't pluck or something haha. but glad to see things are going well, you're going to be 10 days ahead of me :]

CIAO BELLAAAAAAA!!

Forgetting your chapstick is the WORST! My chapsticks slowly disappear between me losing them and my cat playing with them and hiding them under the fridge (one time I found like 5 of them under the fridge )

If I forget my chapstick, I use any lotions I may have (yet another thing I carry around in my purse AKA never-ending bag of goodies! Better than nothing I guess...!

Good luck with those brown thingies...they will go away my dear!

DAY 9!

eww, so i went out in the sun today and randomly decided to pull out a mirror...BAD IDEA!
the dark spots on my face have gotten so much darker!
i swear i haven't been picking or squeezing or anything but whenever a zit or something fades it just becomes this huge brown mark that looks like a giant mole or something haha

my face is soo red (TOMATO TOMATO TOMATO), i can't really tell if there are pimples there or not just by looking because they camouflage! well not really, they are lumpy but the same color as the rest of my face sans the dark spots heehee
i've been wearing less face powders because i just don't feel like covering them up anymore...i wanna give them room to breathe and maybe they'll go away faster?
and plus only 3 days left til break, maybe my skin will be better after break and they won't even remember the week of little makeup!
at least my hair looks good

so i skipped the fish oil yesterday and after running the mile in gym today (which we do everyday...grossss) i was soooo achy and my knees were going through shock and twitching randomly! so to remedy that i bought some pineapples at the grocery and made pineapple vanilla smoothies! with vegan ice cream, of course, since i'm trying to lay off the dairy until this breakout goes awayy.

in other news, i'm finally a veteran member! (i was like practically shitting myself trying to get it up to 60 posts last night lol)
the golden star under my pic is sooo pretty

and i just realized i'm taking 5 AP tests in like a month and half...the things i do for college! haha. i need to move from top 5% to top 2% so senior year is gonna be decked out with AP classes and no lunch but hopefully by then i will have amaaazing skin!!

nos86: thank you!

myresults_xnow: heehee i think i'm gonna do that too! i went out and went on a chapstick shopping spree and from now on i'll just keep a handful in my purse at all times it's big enough to carry all my textbooks (coach purses = <3 ) so it can fit a couple chapsticks in there too yeah and there's zits that only go away after you like pull the hair in the middle out so i have bald patches in my eyebrows nowwww!! yayy i'm excited for you to start!

efitalian82: haha awww. cats are so cute! and i will definitely try that if i ever forget a chapstick again! that's such a good idea! i totally had lotion in my purse that day too! haha. purses are awesome, i'm so glad it's socially acceptable for us to carry cute ones around everywhere

Made me laugh.

DAY 10!

i finished my first blister pack!
how exciting! so now i have to take a sharpie and draw suns and moons on the new packs so i know which one to take with breakfast and which one to take with dinner (in the morning my brain is soooo slow and reading=ugh so i drew pictures! haha)

so...two big ones about to pop up above the right eyebrow (one of them is actually kinda inside of it...)
and lots of random bumps everywhere! they are sort of dark and i tried squeezing one and this hard tube thing globbed out but i've been afraid to touch the others because i have enough scars as it is
which are, sadly, not going away! some are brown and some are red, and i think i'm gonna try a topical retinol cream to speed up the healing process. not anything strong though, maybe just something from Sephora? (auntie's employee discount hooray hooray!!!)
i'm not really sure, though, gonna ask the derm about it via phone on friday when she's in!
my nose is being so weird, this new crop of blackhead-like things arrived and there's also white spots under the skin that i know are filled with icky but are impossible to squeeze!
lips=dead, someone asked me if i was depressed because i didn't smile as much today as normal haha.

the dryness i had earlier is gone now
but i'm not super oily anymore, only sort of (enough that i don't need to use blotting papers anymore! yay!)

i really need to exfoliate...but i've heard the stories about people's faces remaining red for weeks afterwards...
is there any way to get some smoothness with a scrub or something or is that not allowed?

if you use a topical let me know how it goes for you. i feel weird not putting anything on my face everynight for the first time in like 6 years, ahaha. i kind of want to use one just for the kicks of things. you're ten days ahead of me, so i'm watching closely do you just have redmark scars? i'm terrified to see once my acne is gone if i have like icepick scars, sadly i can't tell right now.

Hey gorgeoussss....!!

I am sorry to hear about the bumps...just think, soon enough we can kick those bumps asses and we will both be acne free.....WOOHOOO!!

My advice is this:

-Stay away from the blotting sheets! They do take off excess oil but it also aggravates acne...when I began using them, I noticed my acne getting worse. I asked my derm and she told me they were a no-no (something about the stuff on them and how they can spread oil if used wrong..). I think you are better off using paper towels or plain toilet paper but remember: always use a clean sheet on each part of the face to avoid spreading the oil...
-As far as exfoliating, I'm on day 21 and I exfoliate *lightly* once a week with a warm towel. I don't scrub or aggravate the skin, I just lightly pass the towel over my face to remove excess skin...then I simply wash it as usual.

I hope my advice is helpful...and keep on smiling!!

You seem like a really nice person with a great sense of humor, best of luck with your course!

hahaha i feel the same way! i cut down my routine from like a billion products down to one moisturizer today, and it feels sooo weird! i'm hoping the derma will okay a retinol because those can get rid of all the red marks and stuff. my scars are brown and red and sometimes yellowish (??) and they take foreverrr to fade! icepick scars are scary because i heard the only way to get rid of them is through some kind of injection? idk. but hopefully if you get any scars they'll be surface ones and will fade quickly!



OOOOO thank you sooo much for that! i definitely didn't know they could do that! i'll try to avoid using those when i can because aggravated acne is like the last thing i want/need right noww haha.
and yes we will KICK THEIR ASSES and be completely clear sooon!!!!!!!



thank youu! i try...really hard haha not really, i just type like i'd talk so it isn't awkward sounding because i'm sometimes an awkward person and i say things that don't make anyyy sense at all and that doesn't make sense so i will stop talking

DAY 11

wow. i am having such a bad day today.
nothing is working out, i'm so stressed and sad and angry and tired
and i doubt i'll be getting any sleep tonight because quarter ends tomorrow meaning all papers are due and all tests are tomorrow. great.

sorry for this depressing post. i'm usually a pretty positive and overly optimistic person but today has just been too horrible.
i hate people.
specifically the stupid ones mentioned in an earlier post somewhere idk. how can someone go from your best friend to just another bitchy kid who is trying to turn all your friends against you. people suck.

and i wasn't feeling too good when i got up this morning, which is weird.
not that i'd normally be happy to go to school or something.
i just never hated it that much. oh well.
i didn't even feel like wearing makeup today which is a first for me. what is going on.

wow there are no exclamation points today and i usually use them like...every sentence.
too bad. they're too happy. i am not happy. my sense of humor died. i can't laugh anymore. haha. i just laughed reading that. except it wasn't really a laugh, it was more like a huuuhhhhuuuuhhhuuuuhhh.
i kinda just want to curl up in a ball and die. well not die. i have too much stuff to do. arg. maybe in 84 years.

in other news, the 2 cysts i was talking about earlier and the weird stuff in/on my nose are still there and being annoying.
the random face bumps have gone down a little bit because i put some HIAJ on them last night which must have exfoliated them away.
they'll still become dark spots or something. which sucks. great.
my lips are so chapped they're swollen. and i've gone through like 4 chapsticks today only. what is this madness.

well time to work.
if anyone has any ideas how to cheer up those would be appreciated
i feel like a zombie.
minus like the brain eating thing. i don't think i ate anything today. except an egg with the morning accutane. which is bad because i need to absorb the pills. too much nausea. great. another first.