So I've been suffering from acne for almost 2 years now. I'm 16 in 2 months (female, I should add) and I'm leaving school in 4 months! So I'm kind of getting beyond desperate to clear my skin! My acne is pretty on and off, a few days it'll be 'decent' but then it'll go back for a weeks or months to red, inflamed, sore spots and broken skin due to picking (shouldn't do it I know but it's hard to avoid) it's not ridiculously SEVERE but it's not mild. I'd say its somewhere between, sometimes more severe but sometimes less so, and I have A LOT of scarring as well.
Well anyway, my doctor finally sent me to my derm a couple of weeks ago and they prescribed me 10mg of accutane and I'm due to go back this friday (the 24th) to start my course of 10mg accutane. However I'm having doubts and really leaning away from taking it due to all the side effects. I'm extremely self conscious, and when I say self conscious I mean I literally don't go out for months on end (apart from school, as I've got a history of very bad attendance due to my skin, so I'm not able to take anymore days off). But as I'm already very self conscious about my appearance due to my acne and scars, I don't really fancy going through the side effects such as extremely dry lips, dry skin etc...
So basically I'm wondering if anyone has been on 10mg of accutane? And if so, how were the side effects with you? I was hoping being on such a low dose would reduce or even prevent any side effects... Also, did you get an initial breakout? I'm really dreading that... Also, (so many questions I know) how long does 10mg of accutane take to clear the skin?
Thanks!
I think you won't even notice you are on it at that low dose....it may take a while to clear you, but be patient...I'm sure at that low dose you can probably still use topicals too, like once a day
I would say try it, you can always stop...and really 10 mg is a really low dose
Check the Accutane logs section of this forum. There are several members there trying a low dose regimen, and many are having great success. Also, as an Accutane user, I can say that the effects of having acne have been much more awful than the side effects of Accutane. Accutane causes me dry lips. Acne causes me horrible painful cysts on my face. I prefer the first. You are right to be thoughtful about it and do your research though, as it does come with risks you should be willing to accept.
I'm on 10mg. Basically you get an initial breakout either if your acne is severe , or your acne has been getting worse lately. I got one , it was pretty bad , didn't get out of the house.
No side effects though , so that's good i guess. I'm....day 40 I think. Acne still pretty bad ,no improvements in term of the amount of pimples per day, but its worse in the sense that I have lots of red marks from previous weeks. You can check my post or log or whatever , I got pictures there with my progress. (viewer discretion is advised)