Alright well I'm mainly just doing this for my own self interest, but I'd love to have people follow me if they're interested. Basically I've already started my first round of Accutane(Claravis) and am currently on Day 9. To backtrack a little bit I'm a 21 year old male and have been plagued with mild-moderate acne for about 6-7 years now.
Similar to most of the other people on here, I've tried everything to get rid of my acne. I'm in near perfect health (perfect physicals, bloodwork in great shape, clean diet, daily exercise, moderate drinking, no drugs, etc etc) been on bactrum, minocycline, doxycycline, ampicillin, retin-a, duac, tazorac, tried elimination diets with gluten, dairy, and meat, honey masks, oil cleanse, apple cider vinegar as well as a few other I've forgotten all with no success.
My acne isn't terrible by any means, but its persistent and seems to be genetic as well (father had acne until mid 20s). I have spent a lot of time thinking that I can beat acne just by finding something that triggers it in my life and eliminating that factor;however, after years of trying I finally threw in the towel and began my accutane regimen. I'm just tired of fighting it every single day and always having to worry about how it looks.
As I said I'm currently on Day 9 and my side affects have been pretty moderate so far. I started last Wednesday and am taking 40mg a day (I'm 180lbs or so). My lips have been getting progressively drier and I'm definitely getting a moderate initial breakout.
I'm getting a number of some small cysts around all my trouble areas, but I'm at peace with it so far.
The hardest part is trying not to pop some of the whiteheads, which I've been doing an ok job of. I definitely don't force the issue on small whiteheads, but some of them have become so big, that I just pop them, so they don't pop later when I'm working out or something like that. I heard that its a bad idea to pop acne while on accutane, but I figure as long as I'm not picking I hope I'll be fine.
That's it for now, feel free to post or ask questions if you have any. I'll try to post pics soon.
Day 13, no real updates, cysts on my cheek have gotten much smaller, same with the ones on my forehead. Now have a bunch on the lower cheek area, like slightly above the mouth and to the left/right( if you know what I mean). I think those are mainly because I didn't shave for a few days and not shaving always irritates my acne.
Still dry lips and itchy face, but no other real sideaffects.
I went out and did some drinking on Saturday night (5-6 drinks) and had no reaction to it at all. I know the debate on alcohol while on accutane varies, but in my opinion a bigger guy like me (180lbs) who does moderate drinking 1-2 per week shouldn't cause too many issues.
Day 14- Well It's been two weeks and Accutane hasn't killed me yet so thats a solid, a few new whiteheads here and there, cysts are still slowly going away. Other than that my skin feels pretty good. It isn't as oily as it used to be and the skins that isn't plagued by acne is looking really good. My acne definitely drys out and heals really quickly too. I feel as though once I can get through the purging period, things will be smooth sailing until the end. At the same time, I've also heard that people develop worse side affects as the treatment wears on so who knows.
Day 16- I'm kinda having a minor breakout all over my face now. Skin is still in good shape overall,but now I just have tons of little pimples and red blotches on my face (11 or so). I think its just that my skin is still purging. I had a lot of closed underskin comedones before accutane and I feel like the accutane is finally bringing them all to the surface. The cool thing is that, once the comedones have surfaced and healed, they don't come back and the skin looks really smooth.
Oh I wanted to go over my regimen too. If anyone has questions or suggestions let me know
Morning:
Dan's acne.org cleanser
CeraVe Moisturizer
CeraVe AM Moisturizer
Aveeno Tined Moisturizer ( Sometimes to cover some of the acne)
During the Day
Aquaphor...obviosly
I try to stop in between classes once a day to wash and reapply mosturizers
Night
Dan's acne.org cleanser
Shave with Dorco (Dollar Shave Club) 2 blade razor, making sure to change blades every 2-3 shaves
Proraso Sensitive Shave Soap w/ Badger Brush
Manuka Honey Mask post shave
CeraVe Moisturizer
CeraVe PM Moisturizer
Day 18- Yesterday my skin looked pretty good in my opinion, still some cysts being brought up to the surface on my cheeks, but as I said, I had a lot of closed comedones under the skin so they're just being brought to the surface. Went out and drank and stayed up really late last night and as a result today my skin looks pretty shitty. No new acne, but everything is just inflamed and kinda blotchy. It's my fault, but the weekend and next week are midterms over so I'll be back on a better and healthier schedule for a few weeks.
I think I'm going to try going gluten free or as gluten free as I possible can for a while. Although I've never had any issues with gluten, I do think there is something to be said for foods that cause inflammation.
As I said I went out and had about 6-7 drinks and had absolutely no problems. I wouldn't condone drinking heavily on accutane, but I know that its something that a lot of college students worry about so I want to give my 2 cents. As long as you start slow and figure out how the alcohol is going to affect your body, you can have some fun. I've heard some people say that 1-2 drinks has nearly killed them, and others say that they binge drink 5 nights a week and have no problems. Everyone is different so you just need to find your limits.
Day 29- Haven't posted in a while, but no new updates. Cheeks and forehead are slowly getting better, but I'm still getting new pimples everyday. Going to see the dermatologist tomorrow and we'll see how that goes. To be honest, I'm kinda hoping to get bumped up to 60mg a day. I feel like the 40mg is working fine, but because my side effects have been so mild, I could take a stronger dose and get my skin cleared out faster.
Day 30- Saw the derm today. He said things are looking fine and bumped me up to 80mg on Absorica (Originally on 40mg of Claravis). I don't really know the difference between the generics, but he said that he believes Absorica is more potent. Skin has actually been worse which is kinda a bummer. Keep getting these small little whiteheads on both my cheeks which just make my cheek looks very red and blotchy. I have three job interviews this upcoming week so I'm hoping things will calm down enough so that I look presentable.
I'm thinking I might start off slow on the Absorica and ease into the 80mg. Like take 80mg every other day or something like that. I'll let everyone know how it goes.
Day 55ish?- Alright well life has gotten super crazy so I haven't been keeping up to date on my log, but I'll try to get back into it. So I'm not really sure what day I'm on anymore, I used to track just by counting how many pills I had taken, but when I first got bumped to 80mg I only took 1 40mg pill for the first few days, and then alternated between taking 80 and 40 for a few days so I don't know exactly where I am. I started on September 17th so if November 17th is in a few days I'll just say I'm at the two month point or so.
So 80mg has really been working well for me, things are still being pushed out, but overall things are really getting better. The skin between my eyes/lower forehead has always been bad, but now the skin has become smooth and besides some residual redness, it looks really good.
I have gotten some pretty brutal small cysts right above my lips though. When I suck my lips in, I can see some closed comedones and I guess those are being pushed to the surface. The good thing is that they are pretty much unnoticeable because they are basically right on my lip, the bad thing is that they are pretty much un popable and they hurt pretty bad. I've only had a few though and it doesn't look like too many more are coming up.
Oh and I didn't end up taking absorica because they didn't have any left so I'm just on Claravis again.