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Hey Sheefa sorry to hear you still have the joint pain. I don't have the pain as bad as you do, but the pain in my rhomboid to neck region is pretty bad sometimes. To be perfectly honest the flushing is still my main concern as I can deal with the joint/muscle pain I have. What are you thinking of trying next? Also do you have a hard time recovering from small injuries now? For me I seem not to recover very quickly and nagging injuries seem to linger much longer than they should and used to pre accutane...
I've been reading this thread since it's inception and just registered so I can help with this discussion. I took Minocycline for around 5 months starting around my 21st birthday. I began having intense facial flushing about a month after I started. I didn't really make too much of it... it was the summer and to be honest, this was the first and only medication I had taken at the time so potential side effects hadn't even crossed my mind. I wish the dermatologist would have told me that potentially life-changing side effects could occur to cure up a little acne. What I would give to just have acne again...
The flushing was so intense and frequent that my cheeks turned a permanent red hue. Dermatologist prescribed Metrogel but it did nothing... never went back after that. She did not believe me at all that the Minocycline caused this. Social phobias soon followed. I became constantly aware of my flushing face.
I am now 6 months from my 24th birthday and I still have facial flushing. It is much better then it was 2 and a half years ago but I still am faced with it everyday. Clear patches of skin have developed like it's healing but then I'll have a couple of weeks where my flushing is intense again and I feel like my progress is lost. I've tried many things to combat it... don't know what has worked or not. I can get into more detail if people want me to.
I just don't want to fight it anymore. Three years ago I was a normal outgoing twenty-something. Then I got humbled, badly, hence the username. Granted, I'm as mentally strong as titanium now but I just want my old confident self back. I would give anything.
Your story sounds like mine lol bad karma lol o man..believe me
In my eyes your flushing would be cured by clonidine.its a prescription pill for sleep,stopping smoking..and a bunch of other things...its like basically 90% stopped my flushing but I could not deal with the lack of sex drive it gives
Rameron might help..I have been taking it for 3 weeks and I cant give a review yet seeing as people saying it kicks in after 4 weeks but its an anti-depressant
Apart from that maybe dry dove sensitive soap..in a bar form..I know it sounds weird but it helps with redness/acne..Just started using it
and finacea cream wont help at all with flushing but if you have redness then try it
but yeah for flushing
try clonidine..I bet it will work for you
Once in the morning and once at night
Trust me guys, I would have flushing over severe joint pain, problems eating and constant physical sickness and mile ED any day of the year. I hate my life. I've completely ruined it due to accutane. What's more nobody ever really knew or noticed my acne and I still had plenty of girls after me. What I would give. My arm, fair trade off. My life is completely f&&ked.
IF YOU HAVE THIS PROBLEM YOU ABSOLUTELY NEED TO READ THIS MESSAGE!!!Hi my name is Jordan and I too have been dealing with the same flushing/burning everyone else has described. To those of you who say it is a problem you just have to deal with I assume that you do not have it that severely. For me this problem started about to years ago and it has not yet shown any signs of slowing down. I am twenty one and I have had to take medical withdraw from college because my teachers kept sending me to the nurse for fear that I was having an allergic reaction. I have been to cardiologists, allergists, dermatologist, neurologist, and endocrinologists. About I year ago I found I homeopathic doctor who was one of the creators of Accutane (Dr. Abrishamian). He first thought that Accutane has given me an autoimmune disease that caused this flushing, so we proceeded to detox the accutane from my system by way of administering me intravenous glutathione. This of course did not work and so he tested my hormones from any irregularities and found that my growth hormone level was .1, which is extremely how. Unfortunately because growth hormone is released by your pituitary is spurts, an endocrinologist would not feel that this is not enough of an concern to give me a Arginine infusion test (which would definitively confirm or deny that fact that my pituitary is not working properly. What I need from all of you is to get your growth hormone level tested and I figure if enough of us have it tested and it comes back low we could be more convincing in getting this test. Please respond as soon as possible I feel very strongly that this is the end of the line of all of us who have been suffering from this for months or years.
Sheefa,
I hope that I did not imply that the flushing is worse than joint pain. I obviously do not have joint pain to the extent that you do so my flushing is still my main concern. I'm sorry to hear about your problems eating and sickness. But I do understand where you are coming from on not having that bad of acne. I was seeking skin perfection too, but ended up fucking up my skin and body much worse. I wish I could tell you something that has worked for my joint/muscle pain, but i'll let you know if I come across anything.
Jordan,
Your story sounds familiar so I will get my growth hormone levels checked out once my college quarter is over. That is cool that you have one of the accutane makers testing you though. What other symptoms do you have (other than flushing)?
Jt I have no other symptoms other than flushing. Does your flushing get progressively worse throughout the day because that is what mine does and then it seems to almost reset in the morning and I have an hour window where I am a lot better. Just from common knowledge I know that accutane effects both our immune responses, hormones, and our neurological receptors. I know that your in the same boat having it for years, which means that neither of us have something auto-immune because the severity of our symptoms would dissipate over time. To me this only leaves hormonal and neurological Dr. Abrishamian thinks that it is a combo (neuro-endocrine). That is being cause the the damage accutane did to own pituitary glands. Stay in touch bro and I hope you make it through this semester.
My theory on 99.9% of accutanes side effects is the way in which it alters the innate immune system. I'm not saying you don't have low growth hormone due to accutane, but i think that is a secondary result. It could well be that you have an auto immune thyroid condition now, which is the underlying cause for low growth hormone.
MOST problems from accutane stem back to auto immunity and auto inlfammatory responses. I take an anti milarial now, which has cured my tane induced rosacea. This anti milarial is potently anti inflammatory and modules the immune system slightly.
I have already been tested for auto immune diseases and everything came back negative so I doubt I have a auto immune disease you may which is much more probable however because have tested negatively for all of them I do not see that being a probably cause of my flushing.
Jordan,
Yeah my skin is the best in the morning which I have gathered is common because we are more relaxed when we sleep. I wouldn't say that it progressively gets worse throughout the day as my roommates are nice enough to allow me to control the thermostat which I keep at a cool 65 F during the day so while I am at home I am usually not flushed unless I get stressed. I know you may not see it this way, but you should consider yourself lucky that you have no other side effects from accutane. Obviously i'm not trying to say the flushing doesn't suck because trust me I understand. There is nothing like leaving a 2 hour test with my face burning and blotchy redness all over my neck. But unfortunately the accutane has also left me with joint/muscle pain and eye problems and I know some of the other guys on here have it much worse that I do. Thanks for wishing me luck this quarter. I'm graduating at the end of the quarter which i'm pretty psyched about, but the thought of going to job interviews is terrifying as when I get stressed I don't seem to have any control over the flushing.
Lamarr,
Hey man its good to hear from you again. I was starting to worry that the anti milarial had stopped working for you. I'm glad to hear that its still doing its job. Has it still not increased any of your other accutane induced side effects? That is the main concern I have with taking anything these days as the last and only drug a doctor prescribed to me to combat the flushing gave me heart palpitations for a month (off of one pill lol). Obviously I would much rather have flushing than that as it was miserable.
Jt I do realize that I am very lucky as far as tane side effects are concerned however, I do believe that this is not a permanent problem that needs to just be managed and treated. I sincerely believe that we have something that can be cured, it is obviously from the tane and something as been damaged bio chemically in our bodies. If we can just identify what that change is we can reverse the damage. This is why we should all get our growth hormone levels tested and I believe that we would to many other diagnostic tests. The answer to solving this problem is in us, all we have to do is find the commonalities in all of us, accutane did something to us all and unless it genetically mutated our skin which is highly improbably the damaged is not irreparable. Again we all need to get tested for as many things as possible, we can all help each other solve this thing.
Update went to my doc told him about it
told me to find out a name
all the anti milarials here in canada didnt sound right..searched all them..they had like 3 months-6 months to take affect some said like wtf
so I called the pharmacist and asked for quinacrine (what lemarr takes..another name for mepacrine) and she said canada does not have it but they can compound it for me..
I so emailed my doctor..copy and pasted what lemarr said about how it deals with the immune system so im waiting for a reply and hopefully I will get it by the end of the week and tell you guys how it goes..
I have already been tested for auto immune diseases and everything came back negative so I doubt I have a auto immune disease you may which is much more probable however because have tested negatively for all of them I do not see that being a probably cause of my flushing.
The fact you came out negative for all 'auto immune' diseases doesn't mean anything. You can still have them without positive results.
I was tested for everything under the sun, but i still knew my immune system was way overactive.
BTW the other anti milarials will work just as well for the flushing, i was put on this one because it is the preffered choice of my dermatologist.
BTW this anti milarial hasn't made any of my other sides worse.
Lamarr, what medications can one take take cure an unspecified auto-immune disease? What makes you think it is definitely auto-immune when accutane has been known to also damage and alter your endocrine and neurological systems? My doctor tested for some auto-immune diseases and found that they came up negative which was enough for him but, I would like to hear your opinion.
Lamarr, If you are seening results on what you are taking let me know what it is and i will definitely get it a try, but it would also be great if you could get your growth hormone level tested to satisfy my curiosity because I still feel that this is something worth checking out for all of us.
Lamarr I just checked out mepacrine and although the side effects seem mild by majority some are more severe I feel like prescription medication got us into this in the first place and I am still a little apprehensive to give it an opportunity to get me out. Let me know how it helps you out and if it has, it is great to hear that one of us has semi-beat this thing.
Jordan, If you delv deeply into accutanes side effects, you will find all the problems stem from systemic inflammation. I have read specific studies on isotretinoin causing alterations int he innate immune system, these sorts of changes aren;t detectable with current tests.
You will find that systemic inflammation is the cause of even endocrine and nurologic problems. For isntance it is now known that depression and other mood dissorders do indeed stem from inflammation of certain nurones etc.
Low growth hormone is likely an outcome of some auto immune disases either acting on the piturity gland or thyroid etc.
The anti milarials are one of the safest options for treating systemic inflammation and auto immunity in the long run. There are very few medications out there with the same safety profile.
I have been researching accutane side effects for over two years and i am a perfect case illustraighting how nearly all side effects stem from alterations in the immune system.
All of my problems resolve when address with either immunosupressants or anti inflammatory drugs.
For instance i also have accutane induced hairloss, dryness, dry eyes, rayhnodes, folliculitus etc etc Now when i use topical and systemic anti inflammatories i can overcome all of these problems. I have to apply things like topical ibuprofen gel for my folliculitus and topical steroids for my hairloss.
Lamarr I just checked out mepacrine and although the side effects seem mild by majority some are more severe I feel like prescription medication got us into this in the first place and I am still a little apprehensive to give it an opportunity to get me out. Let me know how it helps you out and if it has, it is great to hear that one of us has semi-beat this thing.
Also one should bare this in mind.... The difference between accutane and most other drugs is that accutane AIMS to alter our bodies in certain ways. Things like mepacrin are not like this, so GENERALLY speaking if you get side effects, most of the time they are reversible.
Lamarr thanks for the information if I pursue the growth hormone and that does not do anything to alleviate my symptoms what doctor do I go to who will give me the drug you are taking and who long does it take for me to see a results from it? I live in the US but am willing to do some serious traveling if it means getting rid of this, I too have had this problem for about two and a half years.
Lamarr I have also taken intravenous glutathione which aids your immune system and that did absolutely nothing so I am still skeptical that it is an auto immune disease.
Trust me dude i am 200% certain the rosacea is an inflammatory condition at the very least, probably auto immune.
Lemar smart guy lol
how old are you
Nearly 23 bro
These symptoms are so generic, the doctor that I am working with is one of the creators of accutane and he has treated patients with symptoms like ours who have the symptoms because of an auto-immune disease. So I do agree with you that generally this is the case with symptoms like these however, I do believe that there is also a possibility that other nervous system or hormonal damage was done. So because like you said the auto-immune disease is not curable, it is possible that whatever endocrine or neuro damage that was done can be cured.
That last message was for lamarr but you probably figured that out already bro lol