I'll start off by saying this intro is going to be short, but it's really not...I like words (and the more, the better).

I'm 23, male and live in Southern Cali.

I run my own business and most of it depends on me being in front of the camera...so acne is just not cool anymore.

Here's my timeline:

* Started getting acne when I was 14/15

* Wasn't truly bad until after HS

* At which that point it became painfully awful. Cystic, takes forever to heal, face, back, chest, neck, etc.

* Went on accutane for the first time at 19. 40mg/day for the first months, 60/day for the second and third, and then 80/day for the 4th and 5th. (I weighed around 170 lbs at the time)

* Cleared me within a month. Never had ANY side-effects (unless you call finally feeling free and happy and outgoing a side effect).

* Acne started to come back 8-9 months after finishing the first course. The sea was angry that day, my friends.

* Saw the derm, said let's put you on a second course, I said fo sho. Same dosage schedule and it worked immediately again. Groovy.

* Went another 9 months or so until acne came back and WAY worse than ever before.

That was about 18 months ago now..

* Went back to same derm, he said let's go round 3, I said OK and we did.

Except this time, it didn't work. At all.

In fact, it seemed to make things worse.. more inflammed.. more cystic.. more oily.

I saw it through the whole course, even though it was obvious my body was not responding the same way to the drug as it had before..

After going off, I decided I needed to go the health route and fix this from the inside-out, so I spent the last year of my life or so cleaning everything up.

Here's Where It Gets Weird..

In the process of getting healthy (and b-t-dub, when I say "getting healthy", I mean cutting all grains, eating a diet made up of only fruits, vegetables and organic poultries/fish, metabolic typing, blood tests, supplement regimens based on those test results, etc.), my doctor also recommended I get checked for intestinal infections (read: parasites).

Turns out, I had not one, not two, but THREE of them in my intestinal tract (strongyloides, h. pylori and entamoeba histolytica). Like you're probably saying to yourself right now, I too was like.. "WTF."

Lol.

So I spent the last 6 months or so medicating and clearing all that crap out and have been tested and cleared of anything for almost 3 months now, which brings us here, because after all of that, the acne has persisted.

Sure, it improved some from the health changes and treating the infections, but it's still there and I just can't deal with it anymore.

Everything else in my life is just too damn good and waiting to be fully experienced and that can't happen until this is done and over with.

So, in working with my doctor, I convinced him another round at Accutane as the prudent thing to do here.

My theory is that the reason it didn't work the 3rd time around, but worked so well the first 2 times is because it wasn't getting absorbed at all (oh, did I also forget to mention I drank... A LOT... that third time around too? The "I thought I was invincible" excuse seems like a good fit here )

So mix the heavy drinking with all kinds of parasites means very little of the retinoic acid was actually being metabolized or absorbed by my body and that's WHY accutane was such a miracle for me the first 2 times around, but not the 3rd (there's really no other reason why the same drug would have such DIFFERENT outcomes with the SAME person -- nothing else was different and Accutane isn't something that your body builds an immunity against -- it's a vitamin derivative and your body makes it everyday with the Vitamin A you take in anyways).

So now, today is actually Day 14 of my now 4th course of accutane (not sure if the 3rd one should even count though) and it would appear to be working.

The first 3 days I took it, all those old cysts or "in the process" cysts that would normally take weeks dried up and disappeared just like *that*.

And since then, other pimples that normally would take a day or two to disappear have lasted for 2 weeks now (the slow healing is a CLEAR sign the Accutane is working, right??).

I also had somewhat of an IB about a week in, with some small cysts in places on my face, neck and chest that I normally wouldn't get or haven't in a long time (another sign it's working, right??).

Additionally, my back has gone from like 20 red cysts to maybe 5 or 7 and something strange I've noticed is that the first week, I became really dry, dandruff, etc but since then...not at all (can anyone explain that..?).

I'm obviously asking all these questions because I've actually had Accutane not work for me at all, which concerns the sh*t out of me, and I'm clearly looking for some form of validation that YES, these signs would signal it is working this time around, it is being metabolized and absorbed and all is right with the world once again )

So please, feel free to chime in here and I'll be back tomorrow.

Laters.