Blue's Accutane Log

Okay, I'm making myself do one of these. Most days it's hard to do anything but cry or be depressed about my skin. But I'm hoping a time line will put things into perspective, if you'll excuse the cliche.

Sooo...basically I was put on a steroid for a hereditary disease for a while, and one of the side effects was horrible acne. Let's start at the beginning, though. I've never had perfect skin. I used get a lot of inflamed patches of acne on my forehead. In hindsight, my skin was actually quite good other than that. But it stressed me out a lot. I would obsess over my skin in the mirror and compulsively pop (mine were always like the ones that exploded pus. lol. Really gross, but yeah this is an acne forum, you guys can handle it). At one point I got fed up and went to a dermatologist which recommended retin a and tetracycline. I never stuck to the retin a but took the antibiotics religiously (even though they made me nauseous), and lo and behold, I had almost perfectly clear skin. My forehead hadn't scarred and discovering coverup took care of those pesky red marks while they faded...at this point my skin was really good. No scars, forehead acne gone, I had never gotten acne on my chin or cheeks at ALL so basically perfect skin. Wow. It took getting used to being able to wake up in the morning and not hate my face. There was a point where I could wash it and get out of the shower and not be scared of the mirror. When homework was heavy I might lose some sleep and not have time to put on mineral makeup and it was still OK. Like OMG lol. A lot of you guys probably know how that feels. Like a period of clear skin...so disbelieving...but it was so easy to get used to. Sigh. It was weird to be able to concentrate on other things..but freeing. Like some horrible pressure had been eased.

Now we come to the obligatory but. But. I have health issues, and they assessed the disease and determined a 6 month course of a steroid to try to put it in remission. Incidentally, I had stopped taking antibiotics because I wasn't sure if they would interfere with the treatment. The first month was okay. I got horrible mood swings, blah blah, a whole bunch of other dumb side effects I won't go into...they were annoying, but bearable. But around the second month, my forehead acne started coming back. With a vengeance. I got big cysts and tons of little inflamed bumps. But it didn't stop there. It moved, slowly but surely, down my temples, to my cheeks, to my chin. Not just randomly dispersed ones, but clusters of painful cysts, and tiny pimples too. It was horrible to wake up to the surety of the progression. They didn't heal, they didn't drain, they only grew, and bled, and inflamed, and grew, and progressed. It was hell. I got bangs, I wore a baseball cap constantly, caked on makeup, and they were still obvious. Avoiding eyes, holding my head down, just counting down the fucking seconds, minutes, hours, until I could escape from class, from school, from people, to go cry in the darkness of my room. My already limited social life withered. Social events were hell. Blah blah, etc.

I eventually got off the steroid (it didn't end up helping my condition). I had previously had a consult with a doc that prescribed Accutane, and hearing about all the side effects, I wanted to see if just going off the steroid would make it go away. But my hopes were dashed as the acne just did not disappear. I tried antibiotics again to no effect, applied tetracycline consistantly. I remember my dad trying to help..he bought proactive for me so excitedly. One time he got this little machine that fucking burns off your acne with a little electric zap...lol. I basically lived from the hope of one treatment to the next. BP, homeopathic stuff, healing moisturizers, apple fasts, etc...I was obsessed with finding a treatment, and reading the latest review in the hopes that it'd be my holy grail..anyway. In the meantime, as time passed, the magnitude did back off slightly...the tinier ones they call "steroid acne" went away...but I was left with a face that was breaking out with cystic acne consistantly and VERY sensitive to hormonal fluctuations and slow to heal. There's probably a scientific explanation for that, but whatever. The mechanism of the steroid I don't need to go into.

Soo...more time passes..probably by sheer dumb persistance I've happened into a routine that has made my face clearer than it's ever been in a while. I glean things from message boards and wives tales or whatever. Things that have been essential in my routine are witch hazel as a toner, african black soap as a makeup remover, dan's cleanser as a gentle cleanser that doesn't irritate, Revlon Colorstay for staying power and controlling oil, sea salt mask for drying up oil and helping redmarks, and licorice for reducing hormonal cysts. There are two kinds of licorice I use, one has the glycyrrhizic acid removed. I use BP occasionally at night on top the sea salt mask depending on how congested my pores feel. I've also been taking evening primrose oil recently. And milk thistle for liver support or whatever. My routine's in my signature.

Anyway, it looks good compared to how it used to. But I still get new breakouts, smaller and less cystic-ish, but persistant. So I decided to bite the bullet and take Accutane. And after the 30 days and a lot of annoying DO NOT GET PREGNANT messages every couple of inches, here I am.

Soo..if you've read this all, you're awesome. I have a question if you want to take a stab at it. How do I integrate Accutane into my routine? It's easy enough to cut back on the topicals and use moisturizer if my face starts getting dry. But the pills...is it okay to take fish oil and evening primose oil with Accutane? I've read something that says that "Isotretinoin, when administered orally, is best absorbed when taken after a high fat meal, as it has a high level of lipophilicity." So I'm assuming taking the oils in the evening with the Accutane, is ok, even advantageous..but I am ready to be corrected if you guys have ideas or experience on that. I haven't found anything yet about whether it's okay to take licorice at the same time as Accutane. So I'm going to stop taking the licorice a little ways into my course . I'm not going off it immediately because I don't want to have some terrible initial breakout if I can avoid it.

Here's to clear skin.

Acne and One Liners

This is something that annoys me. When people say some short sentence like "Get out of yourself" as if that's supposed to be the miracle cure for a condition that has ravaged your self confidence for years. As if simply the force of their order would make it so. That's what I hate. Because after having acne for so long, I just want some form of control. And then people, especially people who have never had a spot of acne in their life, come up to me and say something blunt as if they were going to *force* me to "get over it". It's not as if I don't want to get over it, but I'm tired of dismissal. It takes away any semblance of control I had. It's not as if I forced my condition on them, it's not as if I blabbed to them. I've only ever confided about my acne to a few people, and even then some of them would dismiss me. It made me feel incredibly vunerable and stupid. So now I don't confide in anyone. I just wish there would be someone who understood. Like I read what people write here, and it's just like acceptance. There's not a lot of judging involved. Just having someone share something brief about how they've experienced the same thing. Not telling you what to do, or how to be, or how to feel. No forceful one liners. Just being there. That is most encouraging thing I have ever come across.

Acne and Friendship

The hope thread got me thinking..that ever since I've had acne, I don't feel that I deserve friends. Or that acne makes me a bad friend. Whenever I have bad breakouts I want to hide. And cancel outings, and appointments, stuff like that. I've had outings with friends before, in which a particularily bad breakout was running its course. And not being able to forget my skin for one second. And seeing the sad glances of your clear skinned friends is one of the worst things ever. Or when they look at you, and then look away quickly. My friends are nice people, and they would never say anything hurtful about my face. But they've never had acne, and it's hard for them to understand. Not that I would ever talk about it with them. Or mention it to them, ever. But there's like some sort of nonverbal communication between fellow acne sufferers. Some kind of mutual understanding. Acceptance. Even if you're both self concious mofos. There's something shared that people who have never had acne just don't get. And sometimes now my friends who have never had acne sort of bug me. They seem upset at the most trivial things. I don't mean to judge them, and of course I don't want to stop being their friend, but it just feels like there was suddenly a deep chasm that opened up between us. And it's occured to me, I don't really want to be around them. I don't want to constantly go over such petty worries. I've had enough suffering and agonizing over how I'm not good enough. I'm tired of it. They can go on about a tiny freckle for hours or shit. And I'm tired of pretending I care. Acne seems to make your perspective of pain widen or something. And I realized, I just want a friend who is a fellow acne sufferer like myself, and the unspoken agreement between us is to not care about the acne. The mutual agreement is forgetting. There was another thread on here somewhere that mentioned that acne sufferers just want to feel normal, and those brief times of forgetting are bliss, and I identified with that. I find it easier to forget about acne around acne suffers. I know that sounds ironic, but it's not really. If I see other people with acne it sort of reassures me that's it's ok. And if it's ok then I find it easier to forget. If something is not ok I get preoccupied at how to fix it. But if I don't have to fix it then it just breezes to the back of your memory and your mind is let up to think about other things. It's really refreshing.

But anyway, I've realized that ever since acne, I find it very hard to make friends now. I mean hell people don't even notice my acne when I put makeup on. The hardest part is feeling when other people make signs they want to be friends. And you want to be friends too, and smile with them, and go do silly friends things. But a part of you holds back, and puts up a wall, or blocks the friend stage, and just fades away. Because you can't stand even the *thought* of rejection. And anyway, your next breakout is due soon and once that comes you'll want to hide from everyone and your friends will be hurt or confused. I've always thought that, not letting people get too close in the first place actually saves them later on, because no one likes to be dropped in the middle of a unfolding friendship. So it's like you're lonely, but it's for the best, because people shouldn't feel rejected. And it's better to be rejected before any kind of bond happens between you and other, rather than hurt something substantial.

Sorry for going on and on. I would like to know what you guys think.

Do you pluck your eyebrows while on Accutane?

I know it's a random question, but I read that doing Brazilian waxes and dermabrasion and such while on Accutane could lead to scarring..does the same principle apply to plucking your eyebrows with regular tweezers?

Moisturizing your eyes while on Dan's Regime

Hey guys, I've been curious to know how you all deal with caring for your eye skin while on the regime.

The skin around my eyes is pretty dry so I prefer moisturizing it. I use a small pea sized amount of whatever moisturizer I have on hand (right now it's CeraVe) mixed with a couple drops of jojoba at night, before putting any BP on the rest of my face. In the mornings, before any BP, I use the my SPF moisturizer (Olay Complete with perhaps a drop of jojoba if my eye area feels dry), next BP, then the sunscreen to everywhere but the eye area. This is the best method I have found so far.

What do you do?