45 replies to this topic

[TheBigLebowski]

soysauce, on 08 January 2012 - 05:48 PM, said:

Glad to hear you have been having a good time man, its awesome to feel like your old confident self I think I currently have 2-3 actives, im feeling good this week. Went to a few parties with all my boys since they came back home from college for christmas break. I was not looking forward to when they get back cause I know they would be calling me to go out every night. But things decided to turn around! I hope things stay looking up for you

SoySauce- I'm glad your doing with treatment! It such a great feeling to not have to be self conscience about your acne and have it constantly haunt your mind in social situations. I know exactly what you mean about the bros coming back from college and worrying about the acne breakouts. I felt like that the last couple years when I would get together with everyone. Hope everything stays positive with you and you keep enjoying yourself!

lukuz, on 09 January 2012 - 01:45 PM, said:

Nice log! Keeps me optimistic about the side affects. Started my 90mg/daily dose today.

Lukuz- Thanks! The side effects weren't nearly as bad as I envisioned them to be before I started. The key to minimizing your side effects is with staying hydrated, eating at least somewhat healthy, moisturizing, and keeping chap stick with you 24/7. The worst side effect I had was a dry itchy scalp which came in week 2 and lasted until week 3, which is a very small price to pay for a life with clear skin! Just always listen to your body with how it responds to treatment, but I started off at 80mg weighing 90kg and I didn't have any problems. Now smooth sailing with 90 mg for the rest of treatment. Best of luck and you'll be getting closer to clearer skin every day now!

DAY 90

Derm appointment in 2 days, I don't expect anything change with treatment. I'm still responding well to 90 mg and my side effects are minimal. Just have some dry areas on my shoulders and arms, which are not noticeable. I moisturize before bed and that has kept it very minimal. My face is looking really good, although I do have 1 active on my lower lip which isn't bothering me in the least bit because the rest of my face is active free!

Started working out again and feeling good about 2012. This should be my last month of treatment and I'm looking forward to seeing my end results and enjoying life to the fullest.

4 months isn't a bad investment for clear skin for life!

[TheBigLebowski]

DAY 97

Derm appointment went well just as I expected. Blood work came back good and my face is looking good. Derm thinks this will probably be my last month as long as I stay virtually clear. If that is the case i'll be done with treatment and follow up with her a month later to see how my skin is doing. My derm said that the accutane will stay in my system for another month after I stop taking pills, so if I need to take on another month after my check up, we can continue treatment and it will be like I never stopped which is assuring. That makes sense seeing as how many people see more improvements months after stopping accutane.

Skin: I had a tiny active a few days ago on the bridge of my nose, but that has gone away and can only see a little red mark where it was which isn't too bad. Other than that my face is completly smooth and flat!

Side effects: None! Lips are staying moisturized and so is skin. I've been weightlifting and running now for about 2 weeks and haven't had any joint or muscle pain from it which is nice. Yesterday I lifted for over an hour and ran two miles feeling pretty good.

I was off work for MLK day so I went out with friends Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night. As you can tell, socially I am doing much better than I was before treatment. It's nice being able to get some "face" time and see everyone without be self conscience about your appearance. Man that is the most devastating thing about acne and it literally crippled my sociability all of 2011!

I have love for every one of you reading this suffering from acne. I know how tough it is in every aspect of your everyday life and wish you the best of luck. If you are on accutane and still waiting to see some results, stick with it! I know the side effects can suck depending on what you experience, but the end result is well worth it. If your not on accutane and have tried everything else, talk to your derm about getting on this medicine, it really is a life changer! I know i've said this multiple times in posts, but I can't stress this enough that my only regret with accutane is not starting the treatment years ago when my derm suggested it. Better late than never, but better sooner than later!

[TheBigLebowski]

Just wanted to post on reaching my 100th day of treatment. It's such a cliche to say time has really flown by, but it really has now that I have approached triple digits in days of treatment!

Skin is looking wonderful! No actives and side effects are non existent. I've turned myself back on to drinking green tea (4-6 cups a day) and that seems to have improved some redness in my face since I have started. I would recommend drinking green tea for anyone due to it's multi health benefits including your skin.

All in all feeling really good

[TheBigLebowski]

DAY 114

I have 10 more days left of pills and my journey will come to a halt. I haven't had a pimple in 3 weeks so it looks like i'll be ending my course after 4 months so i can't complain about that.

Side effects: Nothing. My lips still get dry, but they have never chapped once on accutane because i've kept aquaphor with me 24/7. My nose gets dried up boogies, but i've never had a nosebleed. All in all, not too bad.

[jhonyguy04]

congratulations!!

[TheBigLebowski]

DAY 137

So this is going to be my last post for awhile as I finished my 4 month course of accutane. I'll probably end up giving updates once a month just to let everyone reading this how my skin reacts post-accutane. With that being said..............I Finally have reached the end of my journey and I couldn't be happier. In the last month of treatment, I had only gotten one tiny pimple and now I'm 100% clear.

Now I just need to deal with some of the PIH. I've been using Murad 1.5% saliycic acid which I think will help the process go faster. I have used the product previously and it worked really well with balancing my skin tone, until i combined it with BP which made my face red and dry. So i'm going to use it again by itself every night and moisturize. Then use cetaphil gentle cleansing wash in the morning. Just going to keep my regime simple and light.

So what did I learn from accutane?

I should have went on this medication years ago! All the horror stories you hear about people committing suicide, becoming severly depressed, loss of hair, yada yada yada kept me away. I never had any of those side effects while on accutane. I exprienced minimal dry skin, lips (lips never chapped or bleed), eyes (every once in awhile they would feel dry) and nose (never had a nose bleed, but nose gets dry and you'll get dried boogies that have some dry blood on them). The initial breakout The worse thing I think I experienced was from week 2 and 3 when I had an itchy dry scalp. Very minimal side effects and to have these results anybody would do it.

What would I recommend while on accutane?

Drink lots of water and if you drink alcohol, do it minimally. I don't drink a lot, I probably drank 5 times a month (sometimes heavy and not so heavy) while on the medication and my triglyceride levels never increased. I would definently recommend the following products while on accutane:

• Cetaphil gentle cleanser for all skin types
  
• Cerave moisturizing lotion in the a.m.
  
• Cetaphil moisturizing cream before bed
  
• aquaphor lip repair (I can't preach enough how good this was. I kept this with me 24/7 and I never once I had a problem with my lips)

These helped tremendously and made my accutane experience more pleasant.

Other than that, I'm signing out and i'll check you guys later. To all my accutaners, stay postive as the best is yet to come!