Just curious, but how much mg of accutane have you taken thus far?
This is something I should figure out anyway. I was on 20mg for 10 weeks, so that's 20mg x 70days = 1400mg. Then I was on 40mg for 9 weeks, so that's 40mg x 63 days = 2520mg. Then I went back to 20mg for 2 weeks so far, so 20mg x 14 days = 280mg.
Adding it all together I get 4200mg.
For a normal course, we are supposed to get 120-150mg per kg of body weight. I am about 64kg, so 120mg x 64kg = 7680mg. I am well below the lower end of the recommended cumulative dose, so it looks like I'll be good for a while.
Week 22:
I should emphasize that although some of my oil came back, my acne still looks great. It sucks that I'm more oily again, but 20mg of accutane, along with everything else I'm doing, is keeping my acne at about 90% clear. My oil isn't changing with time. It just increases when I decrease the accutane, and decreases when I increase the accutane.
Now that I switched back to 20mg, my side effects are not bad at all. I don't get dry skin anywhere anymore, and my lips are less chapped. I still get a little joint pain, but that's because I work out a lot. I don't feel any fatigue anymore.
Since I have to find something else for oily skin, I decided to give vitamin D3 another try. Last time I only took 4000iu a day for like 2 weeks, and then stopped so I could take accutane instead. But this time I started at 16,000iu, and then went right up to 20,000iu 2 days later. I know it's a lot, but I also know that I'm deficient in it and it will take at least a few weeks(probably months) at this dose to get close to toxicity. I just want to be sure if it will work for me or not, and I don't want to waste time waiting to see if it works. I have been on vitamin D3 for a week. So far, I have not noticed a reduction in oil or any other effects.
This is awesome! I just started an ultra low dose regimen. Good to see some people doing similar stuff. good luck mate!
Thanks, good luck on your course too. Just don't use too little. I don't know how much you're using and how oily your skin is, but I think people with very oily skin would have to take at least 10mg per day to get decent results.
Have you tried fish oil for the joint pain?
I have been taking 20mg accutane with fish oil for close to 20 days and haven't experienced any joint pain yet. 
And this stuff works great! My nose always have those tiny oil spot on my pores during the day, but now it's normal 
Though still alot white stuff inside the pores though 
Week 24:
I started going outside this week to get some vitamin D from the sun as well. So from the accutane, vitamin D3 supplements, and sunlight, my acne looks great. I'm getting like 1 tiny pimple per day. I don't even care about acne right now. The sun might just be helping by slightly burning and drying my skin though, not necessarily from the vitamin D. I don't stay outside long enough to get a sunburn, but I can feel my skin a little dehydrated after being outside. My oil might be a little better, but like I said before, it's hard to tell with this kind of thing. It's definitely not as good as when I was on 40mg of accutane. But my hair isn't very oily 24 hours after a shower, so it looks like it's helping a little.
I'm not really getting any side effects from the accutane anymore except peeling lips. I did start getting some stomachaches, so I stopped taking vitamin D3 today to see if they stop. When they do stop I will resume taking the vitamin D3, but I don't know how much I will use.
Week 25:
I have 59 pills left, so I will be on 20mg for 59 more days. My acne still looks good. My blackheads have not improved, but I do seem less oily than last week. I'm judging how oily I am by how oily my hair looks, since my hair is more consistent than my face. Usually it would be a little oily 24 hours after a shower, but the last few days it just didn't look very oily 24 hours after a shower. Any reduction in oil I get is probably from the vitamin D3 supplements and/or sun exposure.
My stomachaches went away after I stopped the D3 for one day, so I continued taking it at 10,000iu this time. I really hope the vitamin D works, because I need something else that I can rely on besides just accutane.
Week 27:
Everything is pretty much the same. Acne looks good, don't even care about it anymore. I still have some oil and blackheads. Still taking 20mg accutane and 10,000iu vitamin D3 a day. Can't tell if the D3 is doing anything.
Most of my side effects are gone since I lowered my accutane dosage to 20mg. I've been getting some neck pain recently, but I have no idea if that is related to the accutane or vitamin D. It could just be bad posture or something. I'll try to figure out what's causing it.
Week 29:
Acne, oil, and blackheads are the same, as usual. I stopped taking the vitamin d3 for a week to see if it was causing my neck pain, but it didn't go away. So I resumed taking the vitamin d3 and stopped taking accutane the next week. That didn't help either. I really don't think either of them are causing my neck pain, especially after stopping them for a week with no improvement. I'll probably start taking the accutane again soon, and keep trying to find what's causing the neck pain. It's not really bad, just like a dull soreness at the top of my neck.
Week 31:
Not really much to say, which is why I haven't been on here as much. Acne still looks good, oil and blackheads are still here, but better than when I started accutane. I started taking 20mg of accutane every other day to make it last longer. Nothing has gotten worse since I decreased my dosage.
Week 34:
Still taking 20mg of accutane every other day. Stopped taking vitamin D3 because it wasn't doing anything and I took a high dose for a long time. I guess vitamin D clears some peoples' oil, but does nothing for me.
I started breaking out a little, probably because I'm not taking very much accutane anymore. Today I started taking double the probiotics I was taking previously to see if it would decrease the inflammation even more. Probiotics were already working very well at reducing inflammation, especially in my body acne.
Week 41:
I took my last accutane pill yesterday. Now I'm going straight to vitamin A so my face doesn't erupt with acne and oil again. I'll start at 20,000iu a day while I see how I respond to no accutane, and I'll lower it later if I can.
I have insurance, so the actual medication only costed $5 a month. But with monthly derm visits and bloodwork I was still paying $200 a month for my "6 month" course. Even with insurance, it still costs a lot. Because of the cost and the hassle of appointments, I don't plan on ever taking accutane legally again.
But it was worth it. My face looks so much better than before, even though I never got that 100% clear, "after picture" face. Hopefully the vitamin A will make the results last. My light scarring had some time to heal, and I developed some self confidence. I actually asked a girl out, and we're going on our first date this weekend. I never would have been able to do that just 6 months ago.
I haven't been on this site much in the last few months because I don't need it anymore. My face looks good enough to accept it and move on with my life. I'll still post occasionally, but I'm not going to dwell on acne anymore; it's time for me to move on and enjoy my life. I hope this thread helps someone do the same.
And if someone is having trouble getting prescribed a low dose of accutane - I would never dream of promoting this because it is bad so don't do it - one could theoretically just ask for a regular dose and then take less than what was prescribed.
Well that's it. I'll update how it goes with the vitamin A in this thread, and if anyone has any questions I'll get around to answering them sometime.
Hey guys time for an update. The vitamin a just doesn't cut it. I tried taking 30,000iu a day and it felt like it had the effectiveness of about 1-2mg of accutane - it's that weak. That is more vitamin a than I'd like to take, and it doesn't have good enough results. So I'm back on accutane. This time I'm taking a 10mg pill every other day, which averages out to 5mg a day. This is enough to keep my face looking decent without having toxicity. If I take 5mg a day for 4 years, that will be the same amount as if I took 40mg a day for 6 months. That is less than a standard course of accutane, so I should be fine. And it's better than the ~100,000iu of vitamin a I would have to take for similar results.
So that's what I'm doing for the foreseeable future. If I happen to find something else I may start doing that instead...I've always been curious how I'd react to a little bit of spiro...and I don't know if I mentioned it before but here's everything I'm doing for acne, it's not just accutane:
- Diet - Rarely eat dairy, eat wheat once per day at most, never eat dessert, candy, soda, etc, never drink anything besides water. I mostly eat chicken, fish, turkey, beef, peanut butter, fruit, and vegetables.
- Supplements - Tried a lot but now I only use probiotics(these help me A LOT), and sometimes zinc(I've taken it for so long, I don't think I need it anymore).
- Topicals - I only use a knockoff version of cetaphil's gentle cleanser(exactly the same ingredients) 3x a day. And in the shower I just rinse my face for a second.
- Accutane - 10mg every other day.
- And DON'T PICK AT YOUR FACE. I try to only pick if there's a whitehead that looks so easy that I basically just have to drain it, not "pop" it. Picking is a bad habit that I still struggle with sometimes, but some of you will be amazed with how good you look if you don't pick for a few days.
That's all I do to be 95% clear. The accutane reduces oil, clogged pores, and some inflammation, the probiotics get rid of most of the inflammation, the cleanser just cleans the oil from the outside of my face, and my diet and not picking just serve to not make my face worse. The accutane and probiotics are definitely the most important things in my regimen.
That's all the advice I have to give, and I don't see the need to update any more since I found a regimen that works for me. If anyone has any questions you can ask here and I'll see it sometime, or you can pm me and I'll see it right away.
Hello.
I´m hector and I had the worst acne I´ve ever seen live (Sorry for my bad english i hope you understand what I mean).
I will tell you my isotretinoin story, I´ve been taking that for a long time!:
- 1st time: Legal low dose
- (2002 - I was 17yo)
- 20 mg daily for 4 months.
- Initial break out around the first month.
- Cleared around the 3rd month.
- The doctor decided to stop the medication after 4 months.
- Acne came back after 6 months of retiring the isotretinoin but it was less intense, especially on my face.
- 2st time: Legal low dose
- (2007 - I was 23yo)
- 20 mg daily for 4 months.
- Initial break out around the first month.
- Cleared around the 3rd month.
- The SAME doctor decided to stop the medication AGAIN after 4 months. I told him about the cumulative dose but he said that more time on accutane wont help my acne!
- Acne came back after 6 - 7 months of retiring the isotretinoin... this time it was less intense too!
- 3st time: Ilegal low dose (I decided to take the problem in my own hands)
- (2009 - I was 24yo)
- 20 mg daily for 5 months.
- very weak Initial break out around the first month.
- Cleared around the 2nd month.
- I decided to stop the medication.
- Acne came back after 6 - 7 months of retiring the isotretinoin.... less intense but as I told you, I had the worst acne I´ve ever seen. So it was bad anyways...
I just needed some time to live a normal life. I was contemplating suicide but I didnt do it because of my family, my love to them. (I read that deppression was one of the adverse reactions to isotretinoin.... but by this time ... isotretonoin had already left my body... and I thouth that I was deppressed not because of the traces of isotretinoin on my brain... but because of after all my efforts, ACNE had came back and crushed all my beautiful dreams and hopes and motivations, I really thought I had a chance to live a normal life, a trip to the beach, walking without a shirt...
I decided to go on another course by myself... (even if that would kill me on the long run. I needed some good time on my life. So I exchanged "life quantity: years" for "life quality: happiness")
On the mean time: I found 4 pills of accutane that i had left. So i started taking one per week just to take them. I was not expecting nothing but BAM!!!!!!! After 4 weeks.... My skin oilness was like a the one of a normal person... and no more break outs... I was schocked! I never thought that isotretinoin could be effective at that dose (one 20mg pill per week???!!! the first time I took isotretinoin It took like 70 pills to kick in!! How can this be possible??!!). I started my google research and found people doing this micro dose approach with excellent results! Even some dermatologist were doing this!
- 4th Time to now - ilegal Long term micro dose.
- (2010 - 25 yo)
- 20 mg per week
- No initial breakout
- Oilness reduction after 5 - 6 weeks
- No more pimples for about 2 years
- *Recently I forgot to take my weekly pills for about a month (4 pills) ... and after a while I started breaking out again! Oh I had already forgotten how bad that felt! Brought very bad memories to my mind!
I started taking the pills weekly again but I still had one or two cystic pimples on my back every month and since I have dark skin... when they are gone they leave their mark (hiperpigmentation that can last more than 2 years)
I was on this problem again. I looked for solutions and decided to double the dosing to 40 mg per week and also include some vitamin D3 (I heard positive results with it, with acne and other chronic diseases so I bought some 10000UI pills)... everything was fine .... but after two months I was breaking out again.... on my back.... just two cysts... but
- My hypothesis:
- Vitamin A and vitamin D compete with each other. When i add vitamin D, my vitamin A (Isotretinoin) levels went down.
- Isotretinoin levels stored in my body after the last daily course have already gone down and a little weekly dose like 20mg does not maintain the optimal levels anymore.
I think will take isotretinoin daily again for one month and then try to lower the dosing to 20 per week. I´m still taking vitamin D3 because I think i´m deficient (I found that Isotretinoin can lower your vitamin d3 levels). And since a few days ago... Zinc. I´ll let you know my progress. Ask me anything!!
Love you all!
Greetings from LatinAmerica!
Hector
Hello.
Im hector and I had the worst acne Ive ever seen live (Sorry for my bad english i hope you understand what I mean).
I will tell you my isotretinoin story, Ive been taking that for a long time!:
Hey man, I'm glad you found something that worked for a while. Idk if you've tried probiotics but they pretty much cleared my bacne all by themselves.
I don't think 20mg a week would be enough for me either. I'm still taking 10mg every other day, and that seems like the minimum amount to keep me looking good. That averages out to 35mg a week, so maybe you should try 20mg twice a week?