After years of resisting my dermatologist's recommendation, I am seriously considering doing an accutane course.
However, given the possibility of lifelong side effects, I only want to attempt the treatment if there is a true possibility of lifelong remission.
I have two concerns about this.
1. Age - I am 26 years old, and if anything, my acne has gotten worse since adolescence. I am not going to outgrow this. I can't help but wonder if the people who do experience lifelong remission from this drug do so because by the time they would have ordinarily relapsed, they have outgrown their acne. Does anybody know if the age of accutane use affects the likelihood of relapse?
2. Severity of Acne - I would say my acne is moderate, not severe. (It's persistent and resistant to treatment, but it is still moderate) The only place I get cysts is on my chin. However, I know accutane is primarily used for cystic acne. I have even heard people who once had severe acne say they only have moderate acne after their post-accutane relapse. Again, I find myself wondering if accutane is less likely to cause lifelong remission of moderate acne than it is for severe cystic acne. Does anyone know anything about this?
Thank you so much for your help! =)
Heya,
There's no real way of knowing, anyone who takes accutane and also hopes for long term clearance is playing with chance. As for the age, I believe relapse is more common when you are younger (don't quote me, i'm not a doctor), but 'young' generally perpetuates to teenagers. I think at 26 you should not be worried about your age influencing your results as 1) your body is young enough to handle the side effects and 2) you are pretty much fully developed so you can generally discount teenage hormone fluctuations etc. That's just my 2 cents. I think personally if you begin to suffer emotionally from acne then doing accutane outweighs the cons. Further, I haven't heard of anyone's acne returningworsethan pre-accutane, but again, that's down to the individual
This site also has some good info on relapsing/severity if you haven't already checked it out, I'll quote it for ya:
http://www.acne.org/accutane.html
"Although acne may get worse within the first month of Accutane use for about 30% of patients, the ultimate results are usually dramatic.11Accutane works to achieve partial or complete clearance of acne in about 95% of people who complete a cycle, regardless of whether they have inflammatory or non-inflammatory acne.12The majority of people who take it see their acne effectively cured, experiencing long-term remission of acne symptoms. Studies show an average relapse rate of around 33%, and in these cases sometimes a second course is given.7,9,12-17This relapse rate is dose-dependent.13Patients who receive a cumulative dose of 100-120 mg/kg see the best results and lowest relapse rates. Patients who receive a lower dose relapse more frequently. Daily dosage depends on how much the patient weighs; 0.5 mg - 2 mg/kg is typical.15
Low and intermittent dosing: Researchers have published several studies attempting to gauge whether people with mild to moderate acne can achieve long-term remission of acne with lower dosages of Accutane. Initial data is showing that patients with mild to moderate acne may be able to achieve long-term remission with significantly lower dosages, and thus suffer less side effects,18-20including lower incidence of scarring. For people with more severe acne, staying on a lower dose of Accutane for a longer period of time until the full 120mg/kg cumulative dose is achieved may be a way to produce long-term remission with significantly less side effects.21Intermittent dosing (taking Accutane only 1 week of every month) appears to work less well, producing significantly poorer outcomes for more than half of the patients studied.19,22"