Hello, I'm new here, long time acne sufferer from Finland. I'm 27-years old and suffered from acne as long as I remember. The acne is worst around my mouth, some days it looked that I have nasty herpes. I rarely got acne in other parts of body and I never really had them on my back (strange!) I have tried almost everything, from tea tree oil to antibiotics and low-sugar diet. Antibiotics helped, but the acne came back day after I stopped them. Tea tree oil only made it worse and eating less sugar didn't have much of a impact. So I went the the dermatologist and we agreed to try isotretinoin, as my acne was so bad and causes scarring. So I was prescribed isotretinoin under the name Isotretinoin Actavis 20 mg. I take one and two capsule every other day. So far it has done miracles, the acne is disappearing faster than I have imagined. I have noticed that I no longer get new pimples on face, except currently big one on my forehead, which is healing really fast. The redness of my face is disappearing too. It's strange though that now I get pimples to new places like legs and chest, where I used to have them very rarely. I'm currently starting the week 4 and my first worsening stage was week after I started it, but I except more of them later. So now the side effects: My lips are horribly dry and I got angular cheilitis on both sides, it's painful to open mouth full, but vaseline helps on that. My skin is bit dry too, but I use Aqualan L basic cream, which is pretty light. Other side effects are that I get more easily nosebleeds, I have random muscle aches (nothing serious) and bit more tired than usual. I'm taking ashwagandha to prevent feared depression just for caution (Ashwagandha is great for reducing stress and improving mood). So far my mood is good. I'm going to use isotretinoin for 9 months so it's going to be long jorney. Here are some pictures from this battle.

Day 4 (wet hair and the lighting is way off, horrible acne around mouth)

Week 2 (huge pimple on left cheek, worse than it looks)

Week 3 (one pimple on forehead, but already drying)