OldogNewTricks

omgmike4, 

Rorius is right, can't do anything about the cholesterol, but more importantly, you need to focus on what the blood test results show and what it means to have high cholesterol. this is only one of the side effects that accutane can have; another is some serious damage to your liver; acne will not kill you but not having a liver will! Please don't ignore your cholesterol (google it). Was your cholesterol at a normal level for the first blood test BEFORE you started? make sure you ask your derm about this; it your cholesterol was already high, and your derm didn't discuss this with you BEFORE he/she prescribed it, omg.

If your cholesterol is high, this could mean your body (liver, intestines, etc) can't handle the 40mgs; don't freak! If you are taking 40mg for 5 months, i bet your weight is somewhere around 115lbs? We have two daughters, a 20 yr old who took accutane in high school, and we have a 14 yr old currently taking 40mgs x 5 mos and her cholesterol is elevated, but w/i limits. We really watch her diet and she takes an omega 3 1x a day (fish oil; this helps cholesterol too)

Talk to your derm about reducing the dosage to see if this will bring your cholesterol down to "safer" limits. Don't be so concerned about the lower dosage, this just means you have to take the accutane for a longer period of time. Educate yourself on this site and figure out what is the cumulative dosage you should take given your weight and severity of acne. Read the following post to figure out what your cumulative dose should be: 

http://www.acne.org/...ge-information/

We are in our mid 50's and hey, when you get old, you get high cholesterol and you see all the commercials for hi cholesterol, right? Rather than take the drugs the drug companies advertise every 5 minutes, not sure if this will work for you, but our dr said to take red rice yeast, which is a pill, and this helped to lower our cholesterol. Ask your dr about this, maybe this will help reduce your cholesterol along with the omega 3 fish oil

good luck!

Hi Mosey Mom, 

We saw the post by Lastlazarus about your son's initial break out and the issue concerning the dosage. We posted a response to your question about your son's 80mg initial dosage and commented that this seemed really high to start. We think the posting by Lastlazarus shows how important this site is; we have read that a large dose is sometimes necessary for severe acne and the "norm of 120mg/kg" dosage is not for everyone. I think what happened to her bears this out. Hopefully other readers will do their research on the dosage and determine what is best for them.  

As you discovered; the higher dosage can result in more severe side effects like the high cholesterol and impact it can have on the liver; and these are just two of the more severe side effects. (we have found that taking red rice yeast helps reduce our cholesterol; if your son's levels remain high, ask your derm and/dr about this?).  

As to the IB, we didn't see any improvement in our daughter the first 3 months. In fact, her face acne was worse than it  had ever been on the anitbiotics or topicals she was prescribed; she almost quit taking the accutane in month 3. We asked our older daughter to come home for a weekend to talk to her little sister and re-assure her the IB will pass. Seeing is believing.  Our older daughter went thru the exact same thing when she took accutane and her skin is beautiful today. 

Our daughter is now into her 4th month on 40mg and her face is completely clear of any acne. The marks the IB caused are already starting to fade; it is incredible. She just had a small break out on her back (it had completely cleared up in month 3) which we think is just the final IB. For both of our daughters, it seems that once they exceed the midway point of their cumulative dosage, the drug really kicks in. Is your son at his midway point yet? 

As to the rash, we find an otc of 1% cortisone cream works best. We also think taking an omega 3 really helped with joint pain and the IB; make sure the omega has real fish oil. As to the joint pain, our daughter stretches every morning and nite and this helped significantly with her back and knee pain. 

We really hope your son is able to stick with the accutane and he has no severe side effects going forward. We really struggled with increasing the dosage from 40mg to 60mg after month 3 b/c we weren't seeing any improvement. We opted to add an additional month b/c of some weight gain and we are so happy we didn't change the dosage b/c the results in month 4 are so incredible. The main reason we didn't increase dosage is b/c our daughter had the side effects under control and it made no sense to us to take the risk of causing more side effects since she had them under control.

The IB will pass and your son will see improvement; give it time.

Good luck. 

Hi, we are parents with a 14 yr old daughter who is currently on her 4th month of accutane. We have an older child, age 20, who took accutane in high school (amazing results) so we have been thru this before. We have placed several posts on the site about our experiences. We strongly recommend that you read the following post on this site about taking accutane. I wish we had known about this site when our oldest child took accutane; would have saved her a lot of trial and error. Please read the following post which will give you all the do's and don'ts of taking accutane:

http://www.acne.org/...ge-information/

With that being said, you need to educate yourself on how this drug works. For our children, it has been a miracle drug and it is worth the risk of all the possible side effects that you hear about as long as you are informed. Your derm and the ipledge will not give you the "basic" info you need. As for us, we believe it is the cumulative dosage for your child's body weight that is key to taking the drug and having long term remission.

Our 14 yr old  has/had the exact same issues with acne as your daughter; face and really bad back acne. She tried everygthing, ointments/anitbiotics/facials literally everything. Sooner or later, it all stopped working. The accutane initial breakout (IB) for months 1-3 were good days and bad days, but as with our first child, as to month 4th, the IB seems to have stopped and her face and particularly her back are clear and looking really good! It is working!

You should do your own research on how accutane works. Our 14 yr old is taking 40mg a day; she is now 53kg and originally was scheduled to take it for 5 months. In consults with her derm we believe adding a 6th month will insure she gets the cumulative dosage for her weight. Our derm has gone with the "norm" which is 120mg/per kg, or 6000 cumulative dosage (120mgx50kg) originally over 5 months. B/c our daughter gained 7lbs and grew almost 1/2" over the last 4 months, going from 50kg to 53kg means she needs a larger cumulative dosage. Educate yourself on how the dosage works relative to weight. see our post about increasing dosage

http://www.acne.org/...ccutane-dosage/

As to side effects, that first blood test revealed our daughter had mild anemia. other than this, she is very healthy. She took an iron pill everyday and her blood work is now normal.  She plays club volleyball which is very intense. We were very worried all of the side effects you read about would prevent her from playing. Not so. we have a post related to accutane and sports, it is at this link

http://www.acne.org/...ane-and-sports/

As to side effects, our daughter has dry skin, dry lips, a rash on arms/hands that comes and goes (use 1% cortisone) sore back and really sore knee joints. this is probably b/c of the volleyball. the other side effect for our kids was/has been an inability to stay focused. don't underestimate this and give em a break if they forget the little stuff; the accutane will cause this. 

on a final note, when our older daughter stopped playing sports just before completing her accutane,  about 16 months after completing her course, she developed migraines and then became depressed. we went to neurologists to find out the cause of the migraines (she never had them and no family history) and depression and nobody could figure it out. Today, we are 100% convinced it was the accutane. We think when she stopped playing sports, she had no way to release her stress from school etc. We think this and the  combination of the accutane still in her system caused the migraines/depression. This lasted about 3 months and ended when she started playing sports again. For us, doing everything we could for our 14 yr old to allow her to keep playing vb we think will avoid the issues our older daughter had. We also know to keep a very close eye on our 14 yr old after she completes her course, even years later. As to our 20 yr old, her skin is still flawless; never had another migraine and she has never had any bouts of depression (other than today b/c her boyfriend left for study abroad). 

Accutane works, but as with any drug, you need to educate yourself and as a parent, you really have to keep an eye on your daughter, both physically and mentally, and don't add any additional  stress to their life; their body is really going thru a lot on accutane; school; peer pressure; we don't need to add to this over the little stuff. 

Good luck to you and your daughter.

here is a link about us (oops, our daughter will be 14 in a couple weeks, we wanted to wait until she was 14 but the anitbiotics stopped working and there was nothing else; so she is the same age as your daughter. No birth control at this age, abstinence for ipledge is all that is required)

http://www.acne.org/...taking-acutane/

Hi, we are parents and have a 14 yr old daughter currently on her 4th month of accutane (40,mg/53kg/6months); which is why we joined, to get as much info as possible for her. As to taking accutane, have you seen/read this post on the website? very informative and will address lot's of your questions Please read the info that's been posted here

 http://www.acne.org/...ge-information/

Listen to your derm and people on this site; stay away from the sun! What derms/ipledge etc dont tell you is your skin is like baby skin-you wouldn't expose a baby to too much sun, would you? even w/ sunscreen, you are really taking a chance going to Mexico especially if you have complications/health issues while there.

Given you have posted your weight and the mgs you have been prescribed, sounds like you have a good derm; listen to her/him. As to your symptoms  sounds normal. the rash will go away and if it doesn't my daughter used 1% otc cortisone just a little bit and once it is gone, if you feel it coming back, try a little otc antibiotic lotion. As to fatigue sore joints, stretch morning and nite; had amazing impact on our daughter who plays sports.

We feel for you missing a trip, but consider what's the pay off; we like to refer people to this post which shows amazing before and after pics  

http://www.acne.org/...ing-experience/

Read the do's and don'ts on that first link and take really good care of your body like the link suggests

Good luck!

Went to the derm this week to discuss progress after 3 months. Stats: Dec 12 started 40mg accutane, 5 month projected course, 50kg 14 yr old daughter

First, blood work was good. Parents, the initial blood work BEFORE you start can be very important We discovered our daughter had mild anemia, we put her on iron pills and really amped up her diet with meats/sweet potatoes/power shakes (berrries/naked juice/peanut butter/bannana).  Results are now normal after 3 months. If you see your children "running out of energy" check this blood work.

Second. The initial dose was taken W/O food, meaning first month of the accutane intake was probably at a 50% absorption. She took her pill before bedtime. WE Highly recommend this; she developed the back aches, knee joint pain, mild headaches, dry skin and lips, but the initial effects weren't that severe and it gave us/her time to develop a routine how to deal with it, especially the knee joint pain. This was the main side effect b/c she plays sport. Months 2 and 3 were taken with food She also stared taking an omega fish oil pill which really helped with the joint pain and stretching (am going to post an accutane and sports post later). 

Three. To increase or not increase dosage. Remember, the higher the dosage the greater the impact of the side effects. We had the side effects under control and their really were no problems other than the dry skin and lips, which are easily manageable with Carmax chapstick; very light foaming face wash and moisturizer for face and body. After months 3, we discovered our daughter grew almost 1/2 inch and gained 7 lbs. (truth to it stunts your growth?) Therefore, we had to recalculate what the total cumulative total intake should be based upon 53kg, even though she didn't weigh this when she started:

       Starting weight     120mgx50kg=  6000     total projected course intake (remember, her first month was only at 50%, so this reduced the intake (40mgx30 days=120/2=60 mg for month 1)

      Month 3                120mgx53kg=    6360  total new projected course intake. 

As you can see, over a 5 month course, she would not have hit her projected cumulative total intake. From what we have read and understand, hitting this cumulative total as recommended by  your derm is one of the main factors to have long term and permanent remission.   

We elected NOT to increase the dosage; it if ain't broke, don't fix it.

We concluded that since the side effects were under control why take the chance of an increase in dosage to complete the 5 month course if this could result in new/increased side effects ; we decided instead to keep the same 40mg dosage and to add a 6th month. This will put her a little over her recommended cumulative dosage.

What we find important is it seems everyone wants the high dosage b/c they believe more is better and will resolve the acne faster; the problem with this thinking is the higher the dosage the more severe the side effects can be and this can result in your body not being able to tolerate the accutane. For our daughter, taking the the first month w/o food was a great recommendation by our derm; we were able to dial in and deal with the side effects right away; when the full dosage started w/ food in month 2, she was ready for the full impact of the side effects.