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I've hit the start of the dry stage! Small flakes appearing everywhere so I've changed my moisturiser to Clarins Multi-Active Day cream for dry skin and I've also changed my face wash to Clarins Gentle Foaming Wash with Shea butter for dry skin. We'll see if it helps. I'm having to put lip balm on about every hour at least at the moment, and a combination of Neutrogena Norwegian formula lip stick (which is also SPF 20, so that's great) and Lush Ultrabalm are getting me through. I'm going to carry on with my current night cream at the moment, Nivea Regenerating Night Cream, and see how it goes. I might swap to one specifically for dry skin at some point if I'm finding my skin is dry in the morning. I've had a cold for the past few days too which has meant my nose has been practically falling off, so I've had to resort to putting Neutrogena Norwegian Formula Concentrated hand cream on my nose, and it's helped loads.
Think that's all for now!!
Only just into the third week and I seem to be well into the accu-gator stage! My skin is dry and flakey, as well as feeling gator-y (is that even a thing??)
Here's a question for the floor: did you find that, early on, you actually had to exfoliate MORE? My skin seems to grow a layer of gator skin in 24 hours that won't moisturise and stops moisturiser getting to the skin underneath unless I exfoliate to rub it off. Anyone else had this or just me?
Oh, and my lips are still falling off, but I guess that's par for the course!
Hey Astarte
Here in South Africa we call Accutane ..Acnetane heheheh dont know why. So this morning i took my first pill of accutane and im super excited to start my journey 
I am on 20mg per day. Strongs with your journey and i know it will end well.
Kind Regards
Good luck with your accutane journey too! You'll have super clear skin in no time
I've found a product that's great for chapped accutane lips, although it's not actually a lip thing - Neutrogena Norwegian concentrated formula hand cream. I put it on 3x a day under my lip balm and it works wonders! It's designed for dry, chapped hands though so it's no wonder I guess.
Lower back pain is still there but manageable, but other than that I'm fine! Hope everyone else's accutane train is rolling along nicely too.
Hi, I'm also new to Tane. I'm on my third week and my dose has just been upped to 40mg per day. The only thing that is really noticeable is my lips,they are Extremely dry, just bought Elizabeth Arden eight hour lip cream..amazing stuff.
My skin has started to feel very sensitive and itchy too, very hard trying not to scratch as I don't want to create any damage.
I haven't updated in a while because I haven't really had much to say - dry, dry, dry, blah blah blah...
Today I was fed up of waking up with tight, dry skin and parched, chapped lips so I decided to scour the forums for tips and buy a new night cream and something to put on my lips overnight because what I had clearly wasn't working. I've now got some Blistex intensive moisturiser and Vaseline lip therapy with cocoa butter, so I'm going to layer those tonight and see what happens. For my skin, I've got Clinique moisture surge intense gel-creme. I'll report back and let you all know if it works! I've tried the Blistex today and so far, I really like it. It makes my lips feel moisturised and soft - I think I might even like it more than Aquaphor but the jury's still out on that one! I'll be alternating them during the day depending on what my lips are doing. They aren't doing the snakeskin-shedding thing anymore so I'm assuming that means they're being moisturised ok.
Oh, I almost forgot - I bought some Neutrogena sesame body oil to put on after the shower because the rest of me is starting to dry out now too. I'll be testing it out tomorrow night after work so I'll report on that too.
If it all works, I'm looking forward to a new, improved, moisture-rich me!!
Thanks for the tips! This is exactly what I'm looking for when I scour these blogs--real-life experiences, not the "you may experience dry skin, lips, muscle aches," etc. Was your skin oily before you started on Accutane?
Hi Kim0728!
Yes, my skin was very oily before I started accutane, my hair was as well. It got more oily for a week or so after I started taking it and then started to dry out. I still haven't got used to not having to wash my hair every other day and not having a shiny nose by mid morning! Now that I've found products that work, I would go as far as to say I prefer being dry in a way because at least I can add moisturiser rather than trying to chase away grease that always made me feel a bit...dirty, like by afternoon I wanted to wash my face.
Last night's routine was a roaring success! I woke up with lips that were still moist (and even still had vaseline on them!), and supple, moisturised skin on my face instead of a tight mask. I didn't even have any flakes! Mucho impressed.
Also....eyebrow dandruff. What's that about??! That is all. 
Maybe, if the dandruff stays then I'll try it! It seems to be getting better at the moment though - it's like my face is purging in stages and the purge involves the skin in that area getting flaky for a bit and then it clears up. It seems to have moved from my eyebrow area to my chin for now. My nose seems to have calmed down too, although maybe that has something to do with the pore strip that I used the other day - it was amazing! I've never seen so much crap come out of my nose!!
I'm hoping someone has some advice that can help me - I've got terrible cracks at one corner of my mouth that are really painful and start healing only to break open again, no matter how much Aquaphor and Vaseline I slather on. Anyone know how to deal with this because it's starting to really get me down.
I'm hoping someone has some advice that can help me - I've got terrible cracks at one corner of my mouth that are really painful and start healing only to break open again, no matter how much Aquaphor and Vaseline I slather on. Anyone know how to deal with this because it's starting to really get me down.
Oh man, angular cheilitis is the wooorst. Luckily there's a 24 hour cure! If you have it, apply 1% Hydrocortisone ointment three times a day. I applied it overnight when I had angular cheilitis and it had healed significantly.
I'm hoping someone has some advice that can help me - I've got terrible cracks at one corner of my mouth that are really painful and start healing only to break open again, no matter how much Aquaphor and Vaseline I slather on. Anyone know how to deal with this because it's starting to really get me down.
Oh man, angular cheilitis is the wooorst. Luckily there's a 24 hour cure! If you have it, apply 1% Hydrocortisone ointment three times a day. I applied it overnight when I had angular cheilitis and it had healed significantly.
Thanks! I've just picked up some 1% hydrocortisone so I'll try it today/tonight. Really hoping it works!
Angular cheilitis 
Well, I tried a day and a bit of hydrocortisone and then went with (I think it was megtree's?) suggestion of using an eczema cream I had been prescribed previously. I've been using that for a couple of days now and although it has improved marginally, I still have painful, swollen cracks at the corner of one side of my mouth and it's starting to spread to the other side. I've decided to double team it for a couple of days with eczema cream at night and hydrocortisone in the morning, and I'm going to speak to a pharmacist over the weekend. If they can't help I'll contact my derm nurse on Monday.
In addition, I also have a recurring rash on my hands, which heals slowly when I use the eczema cream on it but can come back literally in the space of a few minutes during a day when I've not used it.
This is starting to suck. Not as much as painful cysts and antibiotics, but it sucks nonetheless.
A couple of things tonight.
I went to see the pharmacist and she suggested using Blistex relief cream on my cracked lips. I put it on tonight and my god, did it sting! Thankfully not for long though. I slathered it all over the cracks and the rest of my lips too, just in case. I'll update tomorrow and let you all know if there's any change (it might even help the morning red lip thing). While I was there, I picked up some saline spray for my nose - it's been getting drier and I've been finding dried blood in there when I pick my nose (dirty habit, I know!!). I tried it when I got home and it felt lovely! I didn't actually expect it to do anything but the inside of my nose feels...freer.
The other thing is that my face has started to go red and hot whenever I put anything on it. I mean, anything at all. Moisturiser, face oil, whatever. It calms down after a while, but has anyone else experienced this? I'm using products for dry/extremely dry skin and I've been using them for a while without this effect - it's only started in the past couple of days or so.
That's all for now, folks!
My skin's great - has been since I started on the accutane. Didn't get an IB thanks to the month of double strength antibiotics I took before I started. I don't really want to back off on the dose if I can help it as I don't think I'm on a full dose anyway - I weigh 60kg and I'm only on 40mg daily. I'm going to carry on with the medicated Blistex and see what happens. If it's still bad I'll see what the derm nurse can recommend on Monday. I'm feeling cautiously optimistic that it might be helping - it feels a little better this morning.
So, the crack is still there! The medicated Blistex didn't work. I contacted my derm nurse and she has posted me out a prescription for an antibiotic cream she says will help. She also said that this problem is common in accutane users. The cream hasn't arrived yet but I wish it would hurry up!! I've started taking daily vitamins too as I've read that the cracks can be caused by certain vitamin deficiencies. I'm a vegetarian so I was a bit worried that a deficiency could be making the cracking worse so I'll see if it helps any.
Just as an aside - the red, hot face thing has stopped. Maybe it was just a reaction to the sun or something.
Sorry about the cracks! Ouch! I find that they are super hard to stop once they start.
40 mg is a common dose. There is no such thing as a "full dose". Some people take 60 or 80 mg to get it over with faster, but there is zero good evidence that higher daily dosing leads to better results. The general belief is that you should stick with the highest dose you can tolerate, as you do want to get it over with eventually. There are a few people on here who think higher cumulative doses are better, but that is debatable, and none of these studies conclusively show that daily dose is a factor. Just a thought. I am a 40 mg person, and I got a bit tense reading all the hype on here about higher doses. When I looked into all the research people were quoting, I found it was not as clear cut as they were making it out to be.
I like the blistex medicated stuff. That, lots of aquaphor, and the waxier 'blistex medex' version has helped me to keep my lips semi-reasonable (not cracked and bleeding). I hope you find some relief soon - lost my regular go-tos and used a different lip balm for ONE DAY and ended up with some angular cheilitis that took me a week to resolve. Super painful!
Hang in there! Glad to hear that at least you are having great progress with your skin.