my body feels achy and old... but i have baby soft and clear skin!

It depends on how you see it. For me, this drug make you look and feel older.

Accutane will age your skin as it dries it out and dry skin are more likely to develope signs of age.

My dermatologist said that it may look older (more lines and wrinkles) while you're on the accutane simply because of the dryness, but that it will go back to normal when you finish the course.

He said he only saw one woman in his career (and she was older anyway, like in her 50s) whose face remained dry and more wrinkled.

i dont think i look older. actually people keep telling me how good i look! my skin and body was an oil factory before!! so im happy to have dry skin!! dry skin is a lot easier to treat than acne in my opinion. if i look aged, i blame it on tanning haha. i dont think a 5 month course of accutane is enough to age your skin by a few years (but i could be wrong). so far im happy.

"Retinoids inhibit enzymes which encourage the breakdown of collagen, thus INHIBITING aging, even in the sun." Aaa Dr. Joe

What does this mean? Accutane doesn't make you look older?

It makes your skin look older, at least in the longer run. Short run obviously your skin looks good, but wait a few years and it will look older. IE age quicker.

It makes your skin look older, at least in the longer run. Short run obviously your skin looks good, but wait a few years and it will look older. IE age quicker.

I've been more than 10 years off Accutane and I easily look 10-15 years younger than I am.

You don't age quicker. The only way accutane can make one look older is due the extreme dryness that it causes.

How accutane works is not a complete mystery. If you look around you can find some plausible theories, and also some blasphemous ones.

Basically, it affects gene transcription in a lot of rapidly proliferating cells. The part of transcription it controls is related to apoptosis or programmed cell death. In a nut shell, this is why you should stop feeling the affects of accutane as soon as it is flushed out of your body- transcription resumes to normal. BUT this could take a while for a couple reasons. Isotrentinoin is fat soluble so it is stored in your fat tissue and liver for a pretty long time-especially because of the high dosage and time frame it is taken for. Then, your DNA transcription/translation will revert back to normal, and then your glands will eventually return to normalcy.

There is some interesting stuff out there regarding acctuane and aging. Some research suggests that it affects this part of the DNA double helix (forgot the scientific term already; just learned about it 4 months ago) that is BELIEVED to control aging. Every time DNA is replicated it loses a little bit of its strand. This is compensated for by a bunch of useless sequences at the end of the helix. SO instead of our crucial DNA being lost, a little bit of these useless sequences are lost. As you get older, this useless string of sequences gets shorter and shorter. Then, you start losing some of your important DNA WHICH CAUSES AGING. Here's the caveat: this in itself is still not 100% certain. There is research that suggests accutane shortens that string of useless sequences thus promoting aging. BUT that is not even 100%. So you can't really say for certain that accutane causes aging, but its certainly something to think about.

Anyways, I'm already tired from typing that out.

And my mom has really nice skin at 59, and the derma said it is largely because she still has an oily complexion.

Ageing is controlled mainly by a single gene. They have managed to turn this off in mice and other animals to increase their lifespan 4 or 5 times over what it would naturally be.

And I agree with what you've put above about your mum having oily skin - if you take 'tane and remove all these oils then surely your skin will age?

i thought it made me look younger, my skin was tighter and smoother than ever!!!i have been off accutane for about 3 yrs now my skin is still clear but not as tight and smooth as it was when i was tane.it didnt make me look older at all!

I thought accutane worked well for me initially but ever since taking it my skin just keeps getting drier and drier. Im 25 but i look 35 and my joints and muscles feel like im a 100 years. Dermatologist are full of shit when they say your skin will go back to normal. Unless you have the most severe form of cystic acne stay well away from this poison!!!

I know someone personally who took Accutane 20+ years ago and her skin has not aged prematurely, she looks great. Just my two cents...

I am in my 50's it made me look younger. Gave me a facelift. I have an age spot that faded and really have no wrinkles. I had no idea this would happen. I got acne during menopause and this really cured a lot more than I bargained for. 🙂

An old thread but well worth nudging from time to time.

When on Accutane either as a short term Rx or long term off-labelanti-aging use, I had to find a whole new approach to deep-skin moisturising.

I took high dose Accutane on Rx decades ago to cure cystic Acne. Now, I am using it again off labelfor full-body skin anti-aging. My skin most certainly does 'remember' Accutane as it reacted very quickly on my face after all these decades

I find the 20mg I take, has made my skin over my whole body super-soft, tight, super-elasticand feeling very moist, I'm not exaggerating the difference is spectacular. But... the face and neck became very dry after a matter of days. I would say, extraordinarily dry, where half my face felt like it was flaking off each morning. Yuk.

My solution has been neat Australian Emu Oil, slightly diluted with 5 percent Oleic acid. A couple of drops is all that's needed for the entire face neck and front shoulder area. After the timeit takes for a cup of coffee, its all nicely absorbed in, not greasy or spot-causing at all. Then, apply a good non-comedonicmoisturiser on top. This works for me, seems tosupportthe diminished sebum in 'post-Accutane'skin, feeds the skin, promotes new collagen stronglyand uniquely in the world of oils, its a super-absorber and goes deep,through all layers of the skin.

As for aging you? Well, I am in my 50's and after just 3 months its given me better skin than I had when I was decades younger, my body skin has simply never been this good at any time. Provided I can get the moisture to stay in my face and neck, I am on this for life. I'd rather have whatever number of years on the planet with clearly better, firmer, thicker, elastic skin thanmore years if the price was increasingly depleted/destroyed collagen which make us look 'old'

On 7/4/2020 at 1:38 PM, SkinBattle said:

What do you mean by diluted with oleic acid? Emu oil contains oleic acid.

Dear Skinbattle, I will order the emu oil tonight.

I am 6 weeks in on 10 mg just increased to 20 mg a day. I'm 58 years old and treating some long present bumps in the lower face/sides of chin area I've been told are either acne 1 or large sebaceous hyperplasia. Currently it looks worse after 6 weeks. I have serious concerns as to whether shrinking the oil glands causing these bumps is in turn causing indentations and wrinkles because they weren't there, or at least visible, before. The rest of my face looks fine, actually better, since I started. I have no flaking skin just dry lips, but I will use the emu oil anyway and see if I get some improvement in those areas. If you have an opinion or can comment on whether you experienced anything like this, I would really appreciate hearing your thoughts. Everything I have read says it helps with anti aging, but I am tempted to stop before it gets any worse. Thank you.

On 7/4/2020 at 5:38 AM, SkinBattle said:

An old thread but well worth nudging from time to time.

When on Accutane either as a short term Rx or long term off-labelanti-aging use, I had to find a whole new approach to deep-skin moisturising.

I took high dose Accutane on Rx decades ago to cure cystic Acne. Now, I am using it again off labelfor full-body skin anti-aging. My skin most certainly does 'remember' Accutane as it reacted very quickly on my face after all these decades

I find the 20mg I take, has made my skin over my whole body super-soft, tight, super-elasticand feeling very moist, I'm not exaggerating the difference is spectacular. But... the face and neck became very dry after a matter of days. I would say, extraordinarily dry, where half my face felt like it was flaking off each morning. Yuk.

My solution has been neat Australian Emu Oil, slightly diluted with 5 percent Oleic acid. A couple of drops is all that's needed for the entire face neck and front shoulder area. After the timeit takes for a cup of coffee, its all nicely absorbed in, not greasy or spot-causing at all. Then, apply a good non-comedonicmoisturiser on top. This works for me, seems tosupportthe diminished sebum in 'post-Accutane'skin, feeds the skin, promotes new collagen stronglyand uniquely in the world of oils, its a super-absorber and goes deep,through all layers of the skin.

As for aging you? Well, I am in my 50's and after just 3 months its given me better skin than I had when I was decades younger, my body skin has simply never been this good at any time. Provided I can get the moisture to stay in my face and neck, I am on this for life. I'd rather have whatever number of years on the planet with clearly better, firmer, thicker, elastic skin thanmore years if the price was increasingly depleted/destroyed collagen which make us look 'old'

Dear Skinbattle, I will order the emu oil tonight.

I am 6 weeks in on 10 mg just increased to 20 mg a day. I'm 58 years old and treating some long present bumps in the lower face/sides of chin area I've been told are either acne 1 or large sebaceous hyperplasia. Currently it looks worse after 6 weeks. I have serious concerns as to whether shrinking the oil glands causing these bumps is in turn causing indentations and wrinkles because they weren't there, or at least visible, before. The rest of my face looks fine, actually better, since I started. I have no flaking skin just dry lips, but I will use the emu oil anyway and see if I get some improvement in those areas. If you have an opinion or can comment on whether you experienced anything like this, I would really appreciate hearing your thoughts. Everything I have read says it helps with anti aging, but I am tempted to stop before it gets any worse. Thank you.