Hey guys,
I'm 16 and I've been struggling with acne since I was 11. It didn't get bad until like 2 years ago. My mom finally took me to a dermatologist and since it is scarring he decided accutane would be the best option. I'm really glad that he didn't decide to try a bunch of products that wouldn't work first. You all probably know you have to be on birth control for a month before you start and you have to get the blood tests and pregnancy tests and everything. Well I went through all of that and when I came back the next month to start it the receptionist forgot to put me into the Ipledge system so I couldn't start it and had to do everything over again. Then the first month I started it we were of course going on vacation so I had to stop it a week before we left and wait till we got back before I started it so I only ended up taking maybe 10 doses of it so it didn't have like any effect at all. I just went back on saturday and I'm supposed to stay on 40mg this month and then he's bumping me up to 80mg because the higher dose is supposed to work a lot quicker and have a little better results at the end of treatment. He talked like I'd only have to be on it for 4 months which I really hope is the case because if my acne clears up that fast, I'll be thrilled. Right now my skin looks really bad. I don't really get a ton of cysts or anything at the same time, but they scar bad so right now I have a couple healing ones, some of those little scab type things from like when they pop, and one actual cyst. I have a ton of red marks and scarring which I hope will get a chance to fade once I stop getting more acne. I'll try to post some pictures sometime so you can compare my skin now till later in the treatment. If you guys have any tips for me please tell me.
I'm so excited for my skin to be clear. I have like a mental list of things I want to do once it's clear. I'm so sick of people telling me I have too much makeup on, asking what's wrong with my face, or telling me to try proactiv. I'm home schooled so I don't have to deal with people at school, but I got to deal with people at work all summer. My job ends in a few weeks so I can't wait to go back when I have clear skin and then see what they say about me. I can't wait till I don't have to spend a half an hour on my makeup every morning. I can't wait until I don't have to hide behind my hair anymore and I can chop it all off. I can't wait until I can be confident and feel pretty for once in the past 5 years.
Day 17
I'm considering today day 17 because I've taken 17 pills even though there was like a two week break in the middle of them. So far there isn't really much difference in my skin besides some dryness which is easily controlled with say yes to carrots cream cleanser and some coconut oil. I've also been using dr. dans lip balm twice a day and hempz lip balm constantly. I just placed an order from target for mederma, baby oil (for my body obviously), say yes to bluberries skin repair serum, burt's bees cream cleanser- intense hydration(because I'm almost out of my yes to cleanser and I wanted something more hydrating), and burts bees day lotion- intense hydration. I'm hoping I'll be able to keep my skin from drying out too much with these products. I know cetiphil is like the cleanser everyone uses on accutane, but it has ingredients in it that my skin reacts badly too so I'm using these instead. Obviously the mederma is for scarring which I have a lot of.
As for supplements and food. I've been taking 400 iu of vitamin e with the accutane and today I added vitamin d3, fish oil, and a product called clearzine that has a lot of beneficial vitamins for the skin that I had sitting in the back of my medicine cabinet. I only have about a month of the clearzine so I'm just going to use it up before my dose goes up on accutane so the extra vitamins aren't to harsh on my liver. It doesn't have any vitamin A in it so it's safe to take. I'm taking 4 a day instead of the recommended 6 though, just to be on the safer side. My derm said it should be fine so I'll let you guys know what happens. Here are some pictures of my skin right now.
Day 20
There's really not much new with my skin. I got one new cyst on the inner corner of my eyebrow, the other ones healed, besides the marks from them. Skin is sorta dry even with using coconut oil as a moisturizer. The new skincare stuff is supposed to come tomorrow so hopefully that will start helping the scaring and texture of my skin in a few weeks. My lips are really the only side effect I've had so far. The corners of them a cracked even though I've been using lib balm with hydrcortizone in it twice a day and carmex or burts bees throughout the day. It's kind of a pretty big problem because I sing so I have to be able to open my mouth without them cracking open... I think I'm going to do pictures every month because I think you'll be able to see the progress better and it might be more encouraging than doing it every week.
