Day 225 - 8 Weeks post tane
Hey everyone.
Still clear and happy! Fell han thx so much I do feel better! and thank you Mallory!
Only little issue I've noticed recently... freckles! I'm starting to get freckles along my cheeks from the sun... this has never happened before. AT first I looked at my pics and though ... my face is dirty what the hell... then I took a closer look. Urg I just need a tan and all will be well again 
Attached are my pics from this week ... AND one of my engagment pics! I just got them
and they look awesome!
I hope everyone else is doing great!
Day 225 - 8 Weeks post taneHey everyone.
Still clear and happy! Fell han thx so much I do feel better! and thank you Mallory!
Only little issue I've noticed recently... freckles! I'm starting to get freckles along my cheeks from the sun... this has never happened before. AT first I looked at my pics and though ... my face is dirty what the hell... then I took a closer look. Urg I just need a tan and all will be well again 🙂
Attached are my pics from this week ... AND one of my engagment pics! I just got them
and they look awesome!
I hope everyone else is doing great!
You look wonderful!! i havent been on in a while so i figured id check in... congrats on still having clear skin! and your engagment pics beautiful! Im finally starting to see improvment in my skin this month, this getting break outs but much smaller and less often.. did you still have things under the skin once you started to clear? like i cant tell if theyre new pimples or just old cysts going away..which take forever... well congrats again! lookin' good!
Day 239 - 10 Weeks Post Accutane.
Well it's happened. I have my first active pimple since stopping accutane. 
There are a thousand good reasons why... Stress, I'm starting my period, not washing my face enough at the cottage and being sweaty with sun screen on, touching my face too much at work....
Still sucks though. It makes me very anxious about whether this is just a situational response to the crap this is my life at the moment... or if it's starting again I have three months now until the wedding. I CANNOT start to break out.
I know I'm being ridiculous and over reacting. The spot hardly even qualifies as a full fledge pimple. It's small but it's red and full of the usual gross puss stuff 
I don't even know if I should break it. It's like I'm frozen and I don't even want to look at it too long in case it decides to get worse! So I'm just using sacylic acid gel on it to try to get it to calm and dry up and go away.
I actually almost had a second spot going to but it was a very very clogged pore that was getting a red head to it so I squeezed it out yesterday and it emptied out. Now it's flat and healing up nicely so no pimple
Other then the depressing pimple. Skin is good I guess. I'm getting a ton of freckles that make my cheeks look like they are constantly dirty . That sucks but there are worse things then complaining about freckles. Like MOVING! I'm never every moving again.... EVER it's so stressful ugh no wonder my skin is rebelling.
Otherwise all other symptoms are pretty much gone. My skin has some oil back but not badly just enough to keep it healthy. My eczema is coming and going but not raging like before. All my joint pain is gone and my lips hardly need chapstick
So all in all pretty good.... as long as the pimples stay away
How is everyone else doing!?
Here are updated pics and a pic of the stupid pimple and the stupid freckles lol:
take care everyone!
Day 245 - almost 11 weeks
Pimple is healing nicely but I'm starting to expect a bit of a scar because I've been out in the sun a bit. Oh well...
Otherwise skin is still good and hopefully it stays that way through this stupid stressful week My bridal shower is sunday and somehow I have a ton of stuff to do ugh
wedding stuff isn't so fun right now
Hello michellemac,
First of all id would like to say im soooooooooooooooooo jealous hehe your skin looks amazing in that last pic your posted! And i like your freckles!
My skin seems to be EXACTLY like yours ive stopped (crosses fingers and wishes) getting big pimples but now im getting pesky tiny red white heads....I just wondered how long these took to clear up , like the time for one to heal and go away? ive got like 3 at the moment and theyre buggin me Also did they become less frequent as you got futher towards the end of your course?
Sorry for all the questions!
aleks xx
aleks_hopethisworks - omg dont be silly I love questions! Bring on as many as you like! So i found that my breakouts around my fourth month changed. The pimples went from huge monsters to smaller red puss filled spots that would start of small, swell up then pop and heal quickly. Then as that one healed I'd get a new one again.
This pretty much stay'd consistent until the end of my course. My last pimple was five days before I finished my accutane. Then I didn't have another for 10 whole weeks after I was done the meds! My derm told me that would happen. He explained that eventually accutane can actaully make you break out rather than heal you. And when you stop, the breakouts will stop too.
I did find that over the last couple of months the pimples I did get, were smaller, didn't get as big towards the end and healed faster and faster. But they were defintely consistent I'm sorry to say. I had they back to back with a day or two at most between them. But instead of 3-4 new actives a day I had one that healed realtively fast. I could get a pimple in the morning and have it broken and healing by that night. If you want to see for yourself check out my pics on photobucket... there's a link the log somewhere lol. I was pretty consistent in taking weekly pics.
But the good news is even though you may breakout until the end of your course... you'll be clear when your done!!!
I hope that helps! Please ask ANY other questions you have it is really my pleasure to help in any way I can! I had a rough patch in my course around 3-4 months and a lot of ppl's logs and answers helped me pull through that crappy time and not give up on it! So I definately want to make you feel better!
take care!
Day 253 (like how I actually still know that lol) - 12 WEEKS POST ACCUTANE!
So no big changes. No actives since the last one.
One of the two really clogged pores on my cheek has cleared up.
But I hav a whole patch of little bumps on the far side of the opposite cheek. They don't really feel like clogged pores. A bit more like dry skin ? So I'm going to super moisturize tonight with some cetaphil and hope that takes care of it. I've been work stressed of late so I think I've been touching my face more then I should... I really need to cut it out
Otherwise all side effects are pretty well gone. My eczema is still kicking around on the backs of my upper arms but I'm convinced that has to do with the extreme weather here and the water at our new house! I think my body got really use to the water in my condo that was hard water and now it's re-adjusting to the well water we have. No very bad eczema though just teany tiny white bumps that kind of exfoliate right off.... as long as you exfolitate consistently lol
I'll post pics tomorrow! I totally forgot to take some this morning
take care everyone!
Day 260 - 13 Weeks Post Accutane.
Today is the first day that I woke up looked in the mirror and said
WOW my skin looks awesome!
I have a clogged pore that I scratched at last night while I was sleeping that you can see in my pics that's all red and icky. But so far (knock on wood) thats as bad as it gets
I don't know why the clogged pores have increased in the last week or so ... I must not have had enough water this weekend at the cottage or maybe it's a sunscreen thing.
Anyways a bit of sacylic acid seems to keep those buggers in check!
I hope everyone is doing great!
take care!
goodlife - The color theme is ORANGE! bright redish burnt orange with accents of a deep grape purple, celery green and antique silver 🙂 I was going for a warm exotic feel with a touch of vintage victorian with the silver 🙂
Ooooooooooh! Tell me more about the big day please, I am very interested. 🙂
Hi Michelle,
I have been following your log for a couple of months now, and I just wanted to say that your skin looks amazing! I was comparing your photos pre & post fillers to now and it's unreal!
I am on day 51 right now, so I have still quite a ways to go, but I have a feeling that I'll need to get some fillers done as well. I have shallow scarring on my cheeks, and after seeing your positive results I'm pretty much sold!
I hope the wedding planning is going well - it sounds like it will be a beautiful one for the fall
Day 265 - Almost 14 weeks post tane.
I'M GETTING MARRIED IN 60 DAYS!!!! .... but I'm not panicing lol
However... Friday was a very very panicy day. I had my meal tasting for the wedding, my in laws were there (which is stressful), I was super pmsing, my manicure appontment was cancelled after I sat in a waiting room for 45 min and I got stuck in the terrible kind of slow stupid traffic that makes your blood boil...
so when I got home that night I was not exactly surprised to see a HUGE pimple had swollen up right in the middle of my cheek. That rotten clogged pore that I've been battling forever, took full advantage of my stress and swelled up... but here's where it gets bad
I thought it was just a clogged pore, if I squeeze it... it will just empty out right!? .... no such luck. I squeezed and squeezed and it got bigger, more painful, and bruised. I finally stopped before I broke any skin. I could see the tip of the clog but nothing was coming out!
I put on some sacylic acid spot treatment and just left it alone. Saturday morning... it aws a big black bruised spot. But by saturday night the tip of the clog came out a bit more. I know I'm an idiot but I tried squeezing again. At this point the whole pimple really really hurt so I figured i had nothing to loose and I had to go out wth friends that nigth so maybe i could get it to deflate a little. So i squeezed and the whole thing emptied out. It wasn't pussy just a pile of solid gunk from the clogged pore.
The pimple flattened. and I looked pretty good Saturday night. Sunday it scabbed but with lots of water and moisturizing the scab peeled off monday night and now i'm clear again. There's just a faint pink circle where the whole thing happened.
Lesson Learned: DON"T PICK! and don't get so stressed out
I was in tears on friday and now feel kind of silly. But it felt like my whole face was in ruins on friday and i just couldn't handle the thought of going back to where i was before....
I better stay calm before the wedding i tell you lol
take care everyone! updated pics on thurs!
21 Weeks After Accutane!
I'm getting married in 9 DAYS!!!! and man have I had a crapload of stuff to deal with...
Skin wise...
Acne is great I think I've had four pimples total since I stopped the meds. Skin is no longer too dry or two oily. It's nice! Scars took awhile to clear up but they're going away slowly.
The divet scars I had were actually taking too long and looking kind of crapy so last week I had them filled a second time just for the wedding. I tried using a collogen building cream to build them up a bit but it ended up clogging my pores a bunch
All other symptoms are completely clear and gone. There's just two things that I'm still unsure if they are related.
1. My cholesteral levels are still hovering a little higher then normal... but the good news is, it's my good cholesteral thats a bit high (by 2 points!) and my bad is very low so I'm not too worried... but my insurance company is giving me a hard time about it luckily accutane bought me a 1 year review and if I'm all clear by then I'm insurable lol
2. I have something my dermatologist has called Keratosis Pilaris . I don't think it's accutane related but it still sucks. It's apparently genetically passed down and my mom had it as a kid. but lucky me ... I get it one month before my wedding YAY!
It looks like a whole lot of teany tiny clogged pores that get white heads eventually then exfoliate of and go away. But I've had two now that turn into itty bitty pimple looking things that actually have white stuff inside. they're barely noticable and I got yelled at when I told people they were pimples. But it makes my cheeks and upper arms (where they're popping up) feel like crap. Plus they are more red and noticable on my arms which sucks.
So my derms treatment plan.... go tanning lol He suggested using an AHA but was worried that if I hadn't used it in awhile it may make my skin react against it. So I tried the sun tanning (mostly because I needed to tan anyways) and it didn't work... so I used the AHA from Neostrat last night and after one shot they're almost completely gone! so yay!
So hopefully things are looking better.
On a peronal note.. I have the worst wedding luck EVER!
In the last two months...
- my bridesmaids dresses came in three sizes two big and had to be remade in a week and sent from china by fedex
- the fabric on the new dresses has a defect that is very very noticable and I now have no time to fix
- my fiance tore a ligament in his ankle and won't be able to walk very well at the wedding but at least the cast will be off... but bye bye months of dance lessons
- my wedding gown was first way too big, then way to small and then it was too short... now alterations won't be done until the week of the wedding
- my mother in law is literally trying to drive me insane and causing problems for me and my fiance on a daily basis
- my mother's dress came in two big and wont be ready until the week of the wedding
Plus I haven't had a free second and am still living out of boxes at both my parents house and my new house... so much for unpacking
BUT!!! at least my skin looks good lol
Hope everyone else is doing great! Next set of pics will be the wedding pics! 