been off it for a year. and now its starting all over again.. HOPELESS! 
It's true that some people start to see some acne coming back after their course. Sometimes it's fairly soon after finishing, with other people it's upwards of a year after. In the majority of cases though, the acne isn't as severe as prior to taking accutane - often it can be controlled and kept at bay. I've heard many people say that any acne they've experienced post-accutane is much less stubborn than before and is more responsive to treatments they'd previously tried but had not much luck with (OTC products, topicals, antibiotics etc.).
Sometimes people do need to take a second course, or more, to keep their acne at bay though and depending on what your dermatologist says and whether you're prepared to go through it again, it might be worth giving it a second round rather than playing the hit-and-miss game with various different antibiotics and topicals, to try and banish the acne once and for all. But, it's different for different people... for some lucky ones one course is all they'll need and they can say goodbye to crappy skin for good, for others it just seems to be a temporary solution, and in some rare cases it doesn't help at all in the first place.
Anyway, speaking from my own experience... I've been off accutane for just over a year now and I do get minor breakouts here and there. Nothing I'm too bothered about, really... I'll get the occassional deep painful ones but on the whole it's pretty mild if I don't muck around too much with it. To be honest, if my skin gets any worse I'd rather just take another course to hopefully kick my skin into shape for good, but for now I suspect it could probably be maintained through using topicals or antibiotics. That's what I'm currently using, though admittedly I've not been very consistent with it.
I've heard that with successive courses, the period of remission is likely to be longer each time. Seems to be true for a few people I've spoken to, but it's still a huge pain to finally think you've dealt with the problem only for it to crawl back again. Still, if you're thinking about going on accutane or are on it now, I'd just try to stay upbeat and positive about the experience and deal with any recurring acne as (or indeed, if) it comes. For the vast majority of people, if accutane doesn't get rid of their acne completely, it at least tends to bring it to a much more manageable level.
been off it for a year. and now its starting all over again.. HOPELESS! 
