(reposting here as my original post was in the incorrect subforum)
i have dealt with acne for over half my life. now in my mid 20s its quite mild with maybe 1 cyst a year. however my face is abnormally, extremely oily. i have done 3 rounds of accutane in the past 10 years at 40mg daily and its the only thing that completely halted the acne and the oil but once the tane stops... so do the benefits. my last course was in 2007 and id been wanting to get back on it but i dont have insurance. ive researched vitamin A megadosing and took the idea to my derm. we talked about the side effects, the similarities/differences to accutane, why accutane is different, and how much vit a to take daily. my derm did indeed acknowledge that vit a is kind of the poor mans accutane and said the medical community for the most part doesnt think vit A is good for acne, however he feels that it could be although he admits he hasnt prescribed it as a treatment becos accutane is vastly superior.
im going to take 300k iu daily, in 2 half doses of 150k iu. my derm said this was quite feasible and from his own research says that vit a toxicity in this range is quite exaggerated. he recalls a study that shows the dosage could be as high as 500k for short term treatment. he didnt have any recommendations for vit a brands but said try to find a fish liver oil one as opposed to the synthetic (when pressed as to why not synthetic, he says the synthetic MIGHT produce heavier side fx but thats just a theory and its possible that it wont make a difference). im going to have bloodwork done the 1st two mos to check triglycerides/cholesterol just like accutane, then if all is well in that dept we'll do the bloodwork bi monthly since im payin for the tests out of pocket. the course will run 6 mos. i have chosen vitamin a , in 10k iu softgels (as fish liver oil), from GNC.
the main reason im doing this is to reduce or hopefully stop the oil for a while, a brief reprieve if you will. im well aware that the oil reduction from accutane is a symptom of vitamin a toxicity and im hoping to reproduce the same thing. i also know that once the treatement stops , the oil will return (assuming of course the treatment even works). my acne is still quite mild, 3 regular sized pimples a month on avg (almost always in the tzone, around my nose), no cysts, but EXTREMELY oily skin. i do have bacne as well.
day 7:
the 1st full week since ive been taking vitamin a, here are the results: nothing. there is no noticeable reduction in oil. i have noticed no changes, good or bad, with the bacne. no initial breakout (though i should add i didnt have one with accutane either and i go to relatively great lengths to keep my skin and pores uncongested. i do wear a high quality foundation and will spend a few mins gently but thoroughly cleansing my face. becos of this i dont expect to have an IB). i do feel as though ive been experiencing mild headaches in the past 3 days but i cant be certain its due to the vit a. i took note in my own journal that prior to starting this treatment id had a mild headache, possibly from seasonal allergies. thus, im not sure if the headache is a side effect or not. i have no aches. my lips vaguely feel dry, but nothing that licking them doesnt fix. i monitor my face frequently to see if its any less oily and so far as of 1 week i havent noticed any change there. in fact, i feel and look the same. there are zero noticeable changes of any kind so far.
day 9:
ive been applying neutrogena 2.5% bp all over my face every nite for the past 2 years and have never had any irritation from it . yesterday i noticed my face was pretty red and felt irritated so im guessing the vit A is making my sensitive face even more so . ive decided to stop using the bp for now as i recall how sensitive my face became while on accutane. my lips are mildly dry , not particularly chapped and not at the point where i need lip balm. its most noticeable after a shower; while getting dressed post shower i thought how dry my lips felt specially the outer edges. however their appearance is normal and licking them fixes it so theres no need for balm yet. i have no aches (or headaches) nor am i experiencing any unusual symptoms. conversely i see no improvement on the acne on my back/chest. for now i have to gauge the vit A's effect on my acne based on those areas since i have very little on my face. unfortunately i also see zero changes in oil reduction.
i perused this forum re: vit A megadosing and read a few users' blogs. some indicated they were less oily in as little as a week to week and a half. im wondering if those changes were mis-selfdiagnosis or wishful thinking. my derm said not to expect a reduction in oil from this sort of vit A until the 4th or 5th week. i asked him how he got to that time frame and he said it was based on studies about this very topic. i looked it up afterwards and found some info from a study that states that same 4-5 wk time frame but i wasnt able to read the whole chapter since it was a book online and only offered a 3 page preview.
i will say that as of today , with the redness and mild irritation pausibly caused by the bp , the fx feel similar to tazorac . i used that nightly for 7 mos back in 2010 and all it did was turn my face deep red and irritated. it did absolutely nothing for the oil which is why i tried it. after 7 mos i quit using it cos the itchiness wasnt yielding any positive results.
day 15:
there are no positive/negative changes regarding acne or a reduction in oil. i am experiencing very, very mild aches in the middle of my back. theyre minor but i do recognize them from my experiences with accutane in the past. its not a constant, throbbing ache of any kind; i only feel it if i move in certain ways like stretching or turning around. as of now i rate the ache to be a measly level 1. my lips are still mildly dry and not in need of balm yet. there is no cracking and they dont appear chapped but i can feel they are slightly drying out. the lip dryness is persistent albeit minor.
my hypothesis about my lack of any changes at the 2 week mark: this vit A will take more time to build up in my body than somethin like the powerful accutane. ill probably see more significant changes at the 4-5 week mark. i know by the minor aches and lip dryness symptoms that the vit A is having some kind predictable effects.
ill update again when i notice any moderate changes
one month and 2 days:
i waited to post any update until i saw/felt any changes. recently, perhaps only 2 days ago, ive begun to notice a small reduction in my very oily skin. the area around my nose is still quite oily but my forehead and chin SEEM to be less oily. i say "seem" becos im not quite certain yet. ideally id like to see if it continues for another week before i can make a better judgement call. an example from yesterday: i work in retail so im on my feet and moving for 8 hours. the ac happens to be broken at my job so its extremely warm, thus i sweat and my face gets oily/shinier much quicker. at the 1.5 hour mark i looked in the mirror and found my face wasnt nearly as oily as id expected. the outer edges of my face were nice and non oily with gradual oiliness increasing the closer to the tzone. i could see the tiny little clear dots of oil breaking thru on my nose but my nose was not particularly oily yet. normally id have tapped a little powder on but to my surprise i found that i didnt really need to. it was a bit shiny , just a notch below "dewy" for those that are familiar with that term in makeup. another hour later the result was the same however by the 4 hour mark i felt i needed powder and with each progressive hour my face got oilier. by 8 hours it was pretty oily as usual.
today i paid close attention to how quickly and to what degree my face got oily as i went about my errands. typically by 3 hours im very, very oily and require a powder touch up on the tzone. today i experienced the same as yesterday, slightly less oil by 3 hours , quite oily by the end of the day with the outer edges of my face still looking nice and not oily all day long .
my lips are still persistently but mildly dry and i havent bothered with lip balm yet. for reference on accutane a balm was absolutely necessary. im nowhere near that level on vitamin a.
one negative side effect which im experiencing almost daily is headaches. theyre mild but ive been having them most days of a week. there are infrequent days when i wont have one but for the most part ive been having them. sometimes when i wake up, sometimes throughout the day.
ive also experienced a few bouts of drowsiness here n there.
no other side effects.
Be careful- you can OD on A http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervitaminosis_A
its been about 10 weeks and here are the results so far:
the acne on my chest and back have cleared up although theyve left red marks. i didnt have a significant problem with acne on my face when i started so its hard to judge the effects regarding that. dont get me wrong , i very much still get acne here n there on my face but i havent gotten clusters of acne , like a centralized breakout , in a few years. while taking vit A i still get pimples on my face , in fact i had one that just healed very recently on my chin where i shave so the vit A has not 100% stopped them from occurring. i do feel that when one arises it heals quickly by becoming a whitehead that can be popped in a much shorter time than before; quicker i can drain it = quicker it will heal and go away. as for the oil? id say there has sadly been zero noticeable decrease in oil. i thought for a short while i noticed something positive happening there but whatever it was, if it wasnt just my imagination, didnt last very long. my face is still extremely oily like usual. my lips are still only mildly dry, not even chapped.
theres also no problems with bloodwork. NONE.
some feedback from the derm:
we dont know how much vitamin A im getting by taking these supplements. 300k may sound like too much but its quite possible that the amount of vit A in my system per dose is nowhere near that. for all we know at the moment i may only be getting 50k iu of vitamin a per 300k dose. theres no telling how much vitamin a is in each capsule. the bottle guarantees potency but we dont really know if each capsule truly contains all the vitamin A it claims.
so while 300k doses may sound dreadful its important to remember that chances are likely we arent really getting that much in our system. taking these natural vit A supplements (in most cases via fish liver oil capsules) is not like taking straight up vitamin A.
im going to continue taking them as i feel ive seen some genuine benefits on my chest and back and its only costing me roughly $25 a month. the fears of our livers exploding or imagined pains in our sides (the liver isnt even positioned that low on your side) are paranoia albeit with legit reasons. too much vit A can very much be harmful. ive read negative results of various patients who have done exactly what im doing (tho for different reasons) but in all of those cases they took the supplements for a very long time. from a year and a half to 6+ years and one woman had taken 3.5 million iu daily...
11 weeks : theres a few things i want to add that i forgot to mention in my last post . my skin has become even more sensitive , especially my arms and legs which get minor rashes if i dont moisturize them everyday after i shower. its actually quite annoying at times but slathering on moisturizer helps prevent that . this doesnt occur on my face/back/chest however and i speculate its becos the skin there is quite oily . my face someitmes gets a bit red as well but nothing like the beet red sunburnt color of being on tazorac