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My Log
I hope to use this post as a conclusion to my experience so that you can benefit from what I've learnt and hopefully make your experience a little easier.
It took me about a year of thinking about accutane before actually trying it, so if you're thinking about it... thats totally normal. In fact, after I was prescribed the drug, I still didn't take it after reading the booklet inside and the possible side effects. However, for those 3 months I tried my last resorts and nothing worked. For me, accutane was the only choice. I have battled acne for 10 years and I was ready for my last stand. I was prepared to "lose troops" during the battle and I just hoped I won and those lost troops were not permanent... so to speak.
So, when I started, I made a weekly log. I'm quite a positive person... or perhaps an unemotional person. I never get overly happy or sad and I was logical about it all the way through. With my log, I tried something slightly different and rated my progress as follows:
1) Side Effects (1 - 5) Where I considered 5 to be great... no side effects at all to 1 Nightmare... where I was doing permanent damage to myself and things were incredibly bad.
2) Acne Condition (1 - 5) Where I considered 5 to be great - no spots at all, to 1 which was my current condition. I actually added 0.* values because they were necessary in this case. This meant that if my acne dropped below 1, then it was worse than when I started.
3) Happiness (1 - 5) Where I considered 5 to be great - on top of the world.. cant stop smiling, to 1 where I would be in a deep depression.
I had to include Happiness because suicide is linked to accutane and I wanted to show my state of mind. In the end, I feel that roaccutane did not affect my mental state in any way at all. I had minor highs and minor lows, which was completely based on the condition of my acne or things going on in my life. As a person that isn't particularly emotional.. I can 100% say that accutane did not affect my feelings in any way.
My Course
Weighing in at approx 70kg I'm on:
40mg for 8 weeks
70mg for 12 weeks + 6 weeks
120mg / kg :]
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So anyway, as I said, taking accutane took me a year to decide to go for it. During that time I read these forums a lot and learn't a lot too. I wanted my course to have as little side effects as possible. So I took a preventative approach...
For all typical symptoms instead of waiting for them to happen and then post on the forums... my nose is bleeding - what can I do about that?
I found the solutions beforehand and stook to them. I PREVENTED those things from ever happening.
My next post will show what I did to prevent the most obvious side effects and how important I felt they were.
POST 2 - My Log
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I should reinforce, that this was a preventative approach – an approach to stop symptoms before they start! So I did most of this right from the start:
Face Care - Important
Dove moisturising Soap
Morning, lunch (sometimes evening) & night - This one I can't really give up. I probably shouldn't wash this much, but when my face gets oily it feels incredibly uncomfortable. All I can do is wash it to fight off the feeling
This worked out fine for me. Along with the moisturiser (dry skin) I didn’t have any problems with my face. I found anti-spot face care was too harsh VERY quickly. Let accutane do its work, don’t use anything else.
Dry Lips – VITAL
Vaseline SPF 15 Sun Lip Protection
Every morning & night + whenever necessary! The only problem with this one so far is that if I put too much on it looks like I'm wearing lipstick!
This, as far as I’m concerned, is VITAL. There is absolutely NO WAY that you can go through this treatment without lip care. I hope you’re not a caffeine addict too. Coffee DEFINITELY made my dry lips worse… a lot worse. If I drink coffee I had to put on this stuff every 30 mins. If I drank water, I could do it every few hours, but yes… you will have to use this a LOT.
Dry Skin (Face) - Helpful
E45 Cream (Possibly change total Oil of Olay Total Care for Sun Protection)
Every morning, lunch time & night (Basically after every wash)
This seemed to do the trick. My Derm told me not to use too much because accutane is supposed to dry out the skin. I have no idea whether using no moisturiser would have been more efficient. With moisturiser… dry skin on the face was no problem at all.
Dry Skin (Body) - Important
Dove triple moisturising cream
Every morning in the shower
I think this is very important. At times I really did get arms that had poor, dry skin. Without a moisturiser it would have been quite bad. Keep yourself moisturised as much as possible. Sometimes I had to use an additional Vaseline Intensive Care moisturiser on my arms, shoulders and hands to stop the worst symptoms
Dry Scalp - VITAL
Switched to Head & Shoulders anti-dandruff shampoo (And now also added Head & Shoulders conditioner for dry/damaged hair)
Every morning
I will go into this more later… but I genuinely feel that the “Hair Loss” factor is because your hair follicles (or something
) are so very dry. I ABSOLUTELY think you should be using a shampoo and conditioner which will moisturise your hair. If you don’t you’re putting yourself at a big risk.Joint Pains - Important
Vitabiotics Jointace
An interesting one this... I looked for Cod Liver Oil.. but everything I found had vitamin A in it. I picked up this box and it had lots of great ingredients:
Glucosamine Sulphate (400mg), Omega 3 Fish Oil (400mg), Cod Liver Oil (400mg) - for the joints.
Vitamin D 10ug (200%)
Vitamin E 80mg (80%)
Vitamin C 60mg (100%)
Folic Acid 60mg (250%)
Vitamin B12 500ug (2000%)
Zinc 15mg (100%)
So this gives me the bonus of not having to take multivitamins. The big downside is the price - £4.80 for 2 weeks worth! Is that dose of B12 bad too?
Well… this was an extra. Some people suffered from back pain during the night so bad that they couldn’t sleep. I suffered after physical activity. I think that you should take something. This product seems ideal and helped, but towards the end of my treatment, they increased the price to something silly like £8.50… which lasted 2 weeks.
I do think it helps though, and having those extra vitamins is good for you. Remember that you can’t take normal vitamins because they contain Vitamin A.
Dry Eyes - Important
Optex Dry Eyes lubricating drops
Morning & night & as needed
This was one of my main side effects. Dry, tired eyes. Its uncomfortable to have eyes like this. I can’t say that Optrex was particularly good, but I didn’t have too much choice about products. I would highly recommend some moisturising drops though. You WILL feel tired during your course and keeping your eyes moisturised from the start will be a great help.
Nose Bleeds - Important
Vaseline
Put up the nose every morning & night
From what I’ve read… EVERYBODY gets nosebleeds when on accutane. There is so little space for blood on the inside nose, so when it starts to dry up… it will bleed. Sometimes heavily. People recommend Vaseline and I do too. I used it from day 1 and I had not one nosebleeds. On the occasion that I would forget to use the Vaseline, I would find that my nose was clearly dryer. Use Vaseline every day and you will NOT get nosebleeds.
Hair Loss
Nothing
Not sure if there's anything I can do to prevent this, or whether the side effects are likely
Well… This was one of my great fears. It seems reasonably common. Whilst on accutane, your hair will be so dry that its… well… unwell. It falls out a lot easier than normal. I’m pretty damned sure this is linked to it drying out. People with a very dry scalp will suffer from this quite badly I think. Greasy haired people might not suffer at all.
Whatever, though, I think you’re an idiot if you don’t take this advice.. KEEP YOUR HAIR MOISTURISED. Swap your brand for one that will give moisture to your hair/scalp. It’s a scary thing to start losing hair, but if you keep your hair moisturised then you probably wont.
General
Eat more fruit
No chocolate/crisps(chips), etc
No alcohol (argh!)
Pro-biotic every morning
Play Football(Soccer) 3 times a week
Well, despite what “experts” say… what you eat MATTERS. It’s a pity that I don’t like many vegetables
But I think its no confidence that when I eat lots of fruit for 2 weeks+ my skin gets a lot better, whilst when I eat lots of chocolate and/or crisps it gets worse. CONSISTENTLY. Screw the scientists who deny this, eat well my friends 
For alcohol… I couldn’t last… I had to have some. The most I had was 4 cans at a time and I don’t think it made much difference. Your liver is under heavy strain and so pummelling it full of alcohol can’t be good. I found that this was one of the hardest aspects of accutane. If you can’t drink, then your social opportunities are limited. I still advise that you do not get very drunk whilst on accutane, but I think you can have some.
Pro-biotics seem to do a reasonable job of perking you up 10% or so. Its not vital, but if you’ve got the money then you may as well do it.
Keeping yourself fit is good. It can help your emotional and physical state well… but don’t expect to do too much. See the next section!
My final tip, and possibly the most important… read up on accutane. Read logs and see how people do. What did I conclude from my research?
1) Writing a daily log is BAD BAD BAD – Ok its good for the site and for daily emotional support, but if you’re writing a log entry every night, then every night you are focusing on your spots. You’re focusing on the tiniest detail and you will find the whole experience harder to take. Still to weekly updates and you’ll be a lot better off.
2) The start is bad. You will almost certainly get worse at the beginning. You will almost certainly get worse each time you increase your accutane dosage. Expect it! If you expect it, then you know it will happen and then when it does you’ll think… “Yeah, it did get worse, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought”
3) Keep positive. No matter what you currently think, accutane is a long term plan. It will almost certainly take the full course. You aren’t likely to be clear skinned half way through. Take baby steps. Every improvement is an improvement and when you get to the end.. then you’ll have lovely skin
POST3 - My Log
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The side effects. This is the scary bit. Everyone wants to get rid of their acne, but who wants to permanently damage their body in the process. I feared this part.
So what happened to me? Well… Remember I took a preventative approach so I stopped most side effects before they occurred. I had some problems, but nothing serious at all.
My Main Side Effects
Dry Lips – If you don’t get dry lips you are as lucky as hell (and maybe doing something wrong). You WILL get dry lips and you WILL have to put some stuff on your lips to fix the problem. My lips got worse when I took caffeine (from coffee, etc). At worst I would have to put on my Vaseline lip care every 30 mins.
When I stopped drinking coffee and had water only, then I was fine for 3 hours or so even at its worst. Just don’t lick your lips. Then it can be hell
I am male and so putting stuff on my lips was strange and I would just try to put enough on to make the difference. Maybe people noticed… maybe they didn’t but nobody said anything to me about it.
Dry Eyes – This was a pain. It wasn’t a nightmare or anything, but I was tired a LOT of the time. Expect to have these dry eyes. Its not like you’re going to just fall asleep when you blink, but you will feel tired and for a lot of the time. Its nothing serious though really is it? Being tired slows you a bit, but you can carry on your life as normal.
Hair Loss – Unfortunately, I had a bit of this. I’m sure its linked to having a dry scalp/hair. At first, I wasn’t using moisturising hair stuff and I quite soon found my hair to be very dry (like a week!). I can’t stand in my shower, so I put the plug in and kinda sit in the bath to shower. I would notice quite a lot of hairs falling out (maybe 20-40 per shower) and floating on the water.
I helped this by using moisturising shampoo/conditioner and also being very soft when washing my hair. Sometimes this was difficult because massaging the head during a shower felt great because of the drug. Just don’t do it
Remember that you have crazy amounts of hair. I do have quite thick hair and losing 20-40 per day for like 4 months or so didn’t make any noticeable difference. So if it does happen, don’t worry too much about it.
I now have my thick hair back again with no problems.
Breakouts – Yes, these occur. It seems to be that accutane will thin your skin. So whatever you have under the surface is going to get to the top so much quicker. Expect to have a breakout at the beginning & then again when you increase your dosage. Don’t worry too much, though, these spots won’t last as long as they normally do. Mine used to last 1-2 months (or more!), but during accutane they were lucky to last a week. Fight through these breakouts – keep positive.
Headaches/Migraines – I got these a lot at the beginning. This was partially due to drinking lots of diet coke (and the headache inducing sweetner!) and also dehydration. Drinking lots of water fixed these. There were no serious headaches or migraines. Just regular at the beginning.
Aching Muscles – I’m sorry to say, but there’s NO WAY that any athletes out there can continue the way they are now. I was always quite fit with regular exercise, but exercise = aches. I would definitely continue it, though. You HAVE to cut it down though. Do it as much as you can without causing probs with your life.
I tended to find that I got aches where I wouldn’t normally get them. Like groin strains, etc. The most key thing is that every ligament was just weaker than normal. Run for a while and the tops of your legs ache.
I slowed in sprint speed by 20-30%. I had reduced power in football and weight lifting (well little energy there at all). I had reduced agility too. I was a different player. Recovery time increased from 1 day to like 5 days… I think you can take things to help you with this, but theres no way to avoid it. You can not compete competitively whilst on accutane. Unfortunate
Coloured/Stronger smelling urine – I thought that this was a sign of a liver problem. It turns out I had “no significant effects” from the drug. But I thought I would add this.
Skin – Well… I do have ginger hair and so am quite pale… I got more pale towards the end of the drug. Constantly refreshing skin led me to be pretty white in colour… but its kinda the last thing on your mind
POST 4 - My Log
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So what were my results… Well, you might enjoy this graph. It shows my subjective performance in my log:
Insert picture here.
Acne Condition
It shows that, at the beginning, my acne got worse and steadily got better. It got worse again on week 8 when I upped my dosage and continued… slowly…. To improve. Remember this is 6 months. Progress is slow, but it is there!
It also shows that I wasn’t “Cured” at the end. I still had spots. These disappeared after the course and you could/should expect improvement to continue after you stop the course. It continues to work well after that – please don’t forget that!
Happiness
This doesn’t show much on the graph. My happiness will pretty much depend on my acne condition and my life. Nothing weird there. The only reason to include it is that I don’t believe that accutane affected my mental state in any way. I also must acknowledge that I’m not a particularly emotional person & so its maybe different for me. You can at least accept the knowledge that this drug won’t turn you suicidal if you’re not there already.
Side Effects
To be honest, the side effects started in week 1 and they progressively got worse… but not by much. Primarily for me, I had problems with hair loss (unnoticeable) and also with aching muscles and dry eyes. These were things I could cope with (although the hair loss was worrying a bit). Towards the end of my course, I had been made redundant and I could care for myself more and so dry lips, etc were not so much of a problem.
I did not have any side effects that were critical. I did not have any side effects which disrupted my life.
You can see that, overall, things went ok. There was a nice, but not perfect, improvement and I didn’t suffer any particularly bad side effects.
Conclusion
So here’s the big part. I have now finished my accutane course. What do I feel about it? Am I happy I did it? Disgusted that I did it?
Well… My genuine feeling is that you must try to prevent as much side effects as you can. My tips should help there, as will others.
If you do try to prevent those problems before they start then you should be ok. Of course, everybody is different so things may turn out better/worse for others.
My opinion is that, if you have tried a good majority of other alternatives (and I mean that) and you are mature and emotionally stable enough to try accutane. Then you should.
You should consider your body to be in a cotton wool box. It must be cared for like never before. Do not allow things to sneak up on you. Be prepared and combat side effects that you expect (Hopefully this thread will go some way towards that). You will cut easily and you will find your body is weaker than previously.
Most importantly, you must recognise that this is a long term process which takes baby steps to get to the end. It is not easy to go every day with dry lips or skin and aching muscles. At the same time, it is not a nightmare to do so. For me, it was uncomfortable at worst. Keep yourself well and work at your happiness during those low times and you will come out of your accutane experience successfully.
But as a bad warning, every body is different and will react differently and your experience may be different than mine. Always be careful and take the advice of your doctors.
The big question… If I could go back in time… would I do it again?
My answer is YES. I only wish I had done it many years earlier. Perhaps then I would be less scarred by my experience. At the same time, I feel its important to try all alternatives. At 20/21 would probably be the ideal situation for accutane. Of course, every situation is different.
I truly wish you all the best of luck with your accutane course. I hope acne will no longer be a problem for you like it is no longer problem for me.
10Yrs.
P.s. I got a little drunk whilst writing this. So if you read it early I will probably have edited some things
Well.. I tried to split this up a bit, but it has tied all my posts together. I hope its not too hard to read.
