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[Me_23]

I've had acne since I was about 15.



It never bothered me so much until I reached college, at which point, it became the focus of my life.


I had always assumed that by my mid-twenties I'd grow out of it.


The Fall before last (2005) I went to a new derm, after not bothering for many years because I felt as if they were of no helpt to me.

He prescribed a 70mg dose of Accutane, and promised me that by after the Christmas holidays, I'd be clear forever and never look back or think about this ever again. I was ecstatic and only wished I had seen him years earlier!

What a stupid thing for him to say!


I finnished my accutane course and actually extended it by about 5 weeks (surprisingly, all I had to do was go to the pharmacy and they gave me a refill).

It was only in the very last extended month of my treatment that I cleared up, and my skin was fantastic. Not perfect, but better on a consistent basis than I'd seen in years.

Well 9 weeks or so later and that all fell apart. I had a complete relapse and as back where I'd started with lots of pimples.


Just to give you an idea of my acne, I do not get cysts. Just really oily in the T-area and dry skin everywhere else with pimples here and there. Sometimes, I'll be acne free for a couple of days, but than a few days later, it's much worse and will last for a week or two.


Well I was really upset with how this derm handeled the situation, so I went back to my old derm that I hadn't been to since highschool and he put me on a second course and upped the dosage to I think 80mg.


I'm finnished that course now and it was basically useless.

I'm still getting new pimples every other day and I can already see that in a few weeks of being off the accutane, my skin will get a lot worse. There were certain places on my face, such as my forhead, that I never got a single pimple on for 6+ months while taking accutane. But now that I'm off the meds, I can see early signs of small little things popping up in these places that lead me to believe that as more time passes from my last accutane pill, the worse my skin will relapse.


I'm in my mid-twenties already and this really bothers me!!

I thought that accutane was the final solution, but apparently not.


I'm not sure what to "experiment" with next...

I have another appointment with my derm tomorrow morning.

I want to have some suggestions to throw at him... anything. I won't accept that this is how it is!


What's the next step for me after accutane?


There's gotta be something else out there!

[JBHK]

What else have you tried? I tooked the bcp dianette for a number of years and that helped whilst I was on it. Unfortunately the acne came back worse than ever when I got off it, but at least I had a few years of better skin.

Alternatively you could try the hormonal treatment spironalctone (sorry - can't remember how to spell it) which is again a hormonal treatment which I believe some have had success with.

What about topical retinoids?

You could also try the holistic route. I didn't have much success with it, but if you check out the diet / holistic forum some people will swear that they have seen alot of success with this.