Hey guys, my name is Cody and I've recently visited my dermatologist about starting an accutane regimen. I first started to develop acne when I was about 14 years old, although not severe, I have always been self conscious about the way my appearance presents to other people. Growing up, I was involved with sports and continued throughout high school. During football season is when my acne would flare up at its worst. I've really only dealt with acne on my face and more specifically around the mouth and chin areas. I would consider my acne to be mild to moderate at times. Throughout high school I knew my acne was really nothing compared to others, however I always wanted to have clear skin, because I feel like I'm pretty good looking guy despite my acne.

Since I was 14 I had been using OTC to treat my mild-moderate acne, benzoyl peroxide, and sacyclic acid creams and washes were my go to.. Although they never cleared me up completely, they cleared me up enough where I would feel comfortable with myself. Keep in my mind, my acne was and is not serious, I tend to overthink things and paint negative pictures in my mind about what people think of me and my appearance. I know it's stupid, but I can't help it. I guess I have a bit of a self-esteem issue because of my mild acne. Sometimes I would even withdrawl from social events or classes because I didn't feel good about they way I looked.. I know it's stupid, but it was really taking an emotional toll on me. Anyways, I started college with less than mild acne.. My face was looking pretty good. By midterms I was dealing with a lot of stress and I feel like that really broke me out. I would get flare up quite a bit around my mouth and chin areas like before, but this time it was getting worse.

I decided to visit a dermatologist for the first time for my acne, and they put me on some doxycycline for a few months. It worked great! I was so cleared up and I was really feeling confident about myself. However, after a few months in, I noticed the doxy was looking it's effiency, and I was starting to break out again. My derm then put me on minocycline, a stronger antiobiotic and I had the same results as I did when I first started the doxy. It cleared me up amazingly! I've been taking Mino for about 6 months or so up until and about a month ago, I stopped taking it because I was starting to feel nervous about being on antibiotics for so long. During that time I started to flare up with tiny whiteouts around the same area I was getting acne prior to the medication.

Anyways I went into the dermtologist again and I had in mind that I wanted to start a low dose of accutane. When he walked in he said that my acne wasn't looking bad at all! That was a bit of a confidence booster for me. Because I know I've always been a little harsh on myself because my acne really isn't even that bad. Sometimes it just flares up and it takes a toll on me, emotionally. Being a 20 year college student, I want to get this problem under control once and for all. He basically said that my acne wasn't severe enough to be a candidate for accutane. He said that I could try it if I wanted to, and really left the decision up to me.

So I went for it. I'm going to be on a low dose, probably throughout my course to minimize the side effects as much as possible and because my acne is mild I feel like that's all I would need. I'll be doing 40 mg every other day.

I just wanted to log my progress here, every week and note any side effects along with improvements.

Have you or anyone you know went through a dose like this? I'm really nervous about the initial breakout, but I'm hoping that with going every other day I will be able to minimize that and other side effects as much as possible. Another thing I'm cocerned about is hair thinning, possible hair loss from the tane, I feel like my hair is one of my best features, but hair loss runs in my family so I really don't want to be going bald at 20-21 years old, from what I hear though, this is very rare and only happens in extremely high doses of tane. I'm also worried about loss of strength and endurance because I do workout and I'm trying to bulk up a bit and I've heard that the tane can hinder your performance in the gym.

So yeah, sorry for the long post but I wanted to cover everything right off the bat. Feel free to ask any questions. Any tips are definitely welcomed.

Thanks for the support!

I'll see if I can add a photo so you guys can see how my face currently looks.