Day 2- No changes, I do have a big spot coming up in a normal place for me, but this would have happened if I was taking the drug or not. My biggest issue is my confidence. Im sure most of you all are the same as me, where you feel like you cant leave the house simply because of a mark on your face. Im 28 years old and ive dealt with acne for a large portion of my life, but it seriously has never gotten me down like it has recently. To top off my irrational thoughts, my acne is not nearly as bad as it has been in the past. Mostly im sure because of my age and the responsibilities that I have on a daily basis in front of people.

Although these logs really do help, I think I should try and steer clear of reading too many other logs. The horror stories do not help with the anxiety of taking accutane. In reality I know that people get a bad IB, but there are alot of people who do not suffer from one at all. The doctor said only 30% of people actually get what is considered an initial purge. In addition, the older you are and the more mild your acne, the less severe your IB will be...typically.
I have to remind myself that people on these logs, probably tend to over exaggerate their initial breakout, maybe it is a little worse than your regular break outs, but thats all.I hate when people say they are worse than before they were on Accutane, for me i know this will be the case, becasue im almost 95% clear right now, simply i started in between breakouts.

OK rant over, remember, you are not your skin, and you are beautiful and people want to be around you regardless of your acne...your skin does not define you.

Day 3 - not sure if it is me or the medication, but today when I got out of the shower, I was very flushed, and my face was hot. Typically I have read that this is a sign of rosasea, which would completely ruin my course if it is the case. But it is only day 3 and we will see what happens. It died down after about 10 minutes, but I hope this is not a common occurrence, if it is the worse that happens I will be happy. I did have a huge pustule come up near my lip and by this morning it was already a whitehead, and it was not painful at all. I couldn't resist popping it, it is in my beard so it doesn't bother me at all. Seb Derm is normal.

Day 4 - I'm having a cyst pop up in my problem area. Im sure it would have come up regardless of the accutane. No side effects today, it actually feels like my skin is more oily than normal. The cyst that popped up really got me down for half the day and it's only the beginning. It's days like today that I wish it was totally normal for men to wear makeup, oh the struggles of being a male. Lol

Day 5 - My face is developing a rash like breakout around my nose, its typical Seborrhiec Dermatits for me. I was really going to try and not use any steroid creams, but I am going to put some Hydrocortisone on it today and see if that will calm it down a little. What a never ending battle this is.

Day 6 - Its early in the day to post progress, but I just wanted to say that after putting some Hydrocortisone on my face, it has calmed down alot. Not as painful or itchy. The redness has calmed down alot. I have always had a sneaky suspicion that the cortisone makes me break out. I can have weeks with no breakouts at all of acne or the seb derm. The only thing that I will use is the Hydro every couple of days. Then I usually get one big cystic breakout. It could be completely unrelated or my brain trying to rationalize my skin. Either way, skin doesnt look terrible, still irritated and I have a red scaly patch that came up on my hair line from the seb derm. Skin feels very dry, but still oily on top.

I just got back from meditation and wanted to update my little log. This log is not about me. I have looked for hours and hours online for other with my same situation. That is my way of trying to put my story out there for others to see who are dealing with the same thing. I don't know if it's right, but it's just my journey. What's happening mentally and physically.

Hi!  Reading your log now...

Did you ever try zinc for your SD?  I'm a member of Reddit's SCA (removed) forum (mostly I just lurk, not a big commenter), and quite a few commenters on there have mentioned that zinc helped their SD immensely!  Some of them mentioned using zinc soap or Desitin (diaper rash) ointment, but most of them raved that it was life-changing!  Obviously you're on the 'tane now, but just thought I'd throw that out there. 

Also, I think the "accutane flush" is a pretty common side effect; I noticed it recently and remember it from my first course.  I blushed FAR easier during my first course if I ever got embarrassed or something, and obviously skin was much more sensitive in general.  Now, I don't mind it - I find the flush kind of gives me a bit of color in my otherwise pale face, and I don't need to wear blush!   

Anyway, best of luck - I will be following along (and of course I'll stay positive in my log - no worries there)! 

On 1/13/2016 at 11:07 PM, LoveLouisV said:

Hi!  Reading your log now...

Did you ever try zinc for your SD?  I'm a member of Reddit's SCA (removed) forum (mostly I just lurk, not a big commenter), and quite a few commenters on there have mentioned that zinc helped their SD immensely!  Some of them mentioned using zinc soap or Desitin (diaper rash) ointment, but most of them raved that it was life-changing!  Obviously you're on the 'tane now, but just thought I'd throw that out there. 

Also, I think the "accutane flush" is a pretty common side effect; I noticed it recently and remember it from my first course.  I blushed FAR easier during my first course if I ever got embarrassed or something, and obviously skin was much more sensitive in general.  Now, I don't mind it - I find the flush kind of gives me a bit of color in my otherwise pale face, and I don't need to wear blush!   

Anyway, best of luck - I will be following along (and of course I'll stay positive in my log - no worries there)! 

Thank you so much for the post. I have actually not tried the zinc soap bar. I might give it a try, I have had some really bad experiences trying new soaps, so im kind of shell shock to try new things. Unfortunately for me if I guess wrong and my SD flares up, theres no make up I can wear to cover it up lol. Most soaps that I have used have irritated my face. I hope this treatment works for me. I really hope the accutane calms it down, it is going crazy right now. 

If I may, I recommend the Noble Formula Zinc Bar - as you can see by clicking the link it's relatively inexpensive and lasts a while. Although it's pretty gentle, it *can* be somewhat drying, so I'd recommend a good moisturizer after each use and maybe only using it once a day. Also, check with your derm - I don't want to steer you wrong since I'm not sure how using this while on accutane could affect you (I don't imagine it would negatively affect your course, but better to be safe than sorry).

If you did get the product, I also recommend patch-testing it on a small portion of your face before committing to the full face, again just to be on the safe side. Good luck! 🙂

Day 7 - I am going to make a commitment to myself to make these logs a possitive outlet. I think that I come on here and too ofter I search for the bad stories. When I read others logs I find myself looking for when their IB starts, how bad it is, what thier condition was like before. I dont focus on the big picture. It blows my mind when I read people say that they have been too busy to write about their experience, as if they are able to just block out their skin. It could be that most of them are able to wear makeup and hide what most men cant (just a little jealous). I have made a conscious effort to do this. I spend alot of my day worrying about my face. My acne is very mild, I have one active closed comodone cyst looking thing next to my nose and I think its terrible. But also my Seborrheic Dermatitis is the worst it has ever been. I will attribute this to the Accutane. I have read a number of places that once the skin dries out the SD goes away. As of right now my skin feels very dry, but to the touch it is very oily. 

Just a little update, day 7 is pretty similar to day 6, nothing really has changed, skin is still dry/oily and my lips are getting chapped even tho they are not dry, they are getting irritated. I have started noticing around my mouth I usually have some black heads and they are making their way out which is kinda cool. Overall my face looks good. It looks irritated and flaky as all hell, and I have an active right in the middle. But it is not that bad. Looking forward to the rest of the day. 

6 minutes ago, LoveLouisV said:

If I may, I recommend the Noble Formula Zinc Bar - as you can see by clicking the link it's relatively inexpensive and lasts a while.  Although it's pretty gentle, it *can* be somewhat drying, so I'd recommend a good moisturizer after each use and maybe only using it once a day.  Also, check with your derm - I don't want to steer you wrong since I'm not sure how using this while on accutane could affect you (I don't imagine it would negatively affect your course, but better to be safe than sorry). 

If you did get the product, I also recommend patch-testing it on a small portion of your face before committing to the full face, again just to be on the safe side.  Good luck! 

Ordering now, I will give it a go. Thank you!!

I just realized that this is the same ingredients in head and shoulders haha so yes ive tried it. It worked for years, then stopped 🙁

Day 8 - day 7 was a rough one for me. The hardest part is going to work. I have been more critical of my face since I started accutane, which should not be the case. I need to lower my expectations of how I am going to look for the next month or so. Just an update on my Seborrheic Dermatits. It is really bad. The worse Ive ever had. My beard it flaky, my hair line is flaky and has red patches. I shouldn't be using the hydrocortisone, but it is the only thing that has made it calm down at all. The sides of my nose are very dry and flaky, but at the same time, they are very oily. I dont think my oil production has reduced at all if anything it has increased. Which ive read a few others have the same reaction. I am emailing my derm today to see if I should lower the dose a little. Im only on day 8 and I feel like ive been dealing with this for months.

In addition to all of this, I feel like my emotional state has changed a little. I am ultra super sensitive to how I am handling this. I am being extremely hard on myself. I can recognize that my mood toward my complexion has changed. I much more critical and much more judgmental of how I appear. I feel like I am under a microscope and everyone knows what I am going through. Which is total BS. I know its just thoughts that are coming up and I am having a hard time gaining control of them. I think it makes this even harder because I have very mild acne. So when I do get a new blemish, I think its the biggest deal in the world.

So all in all the first week was fairly bad. I hope that this subsides. I look forward to the dry skin, if this means that my Seb Derm will go away. On a positive note, I did have a very large clogged pore on my lower lip, for probably a year, and last night, I looked and the head was sticking out, and I used tweezers and just pulled out a large waxy plug. It left a large empty pore, but im guessing this is a good sign that the drug is pushing the bad stuff out of my skin. Its 9:33 am and I probably got out of the shower at 6:45 and my face is already very oily.

Just an update, my derm told me it was ok to lower my dose to 20mg a day for the rest of the 1st month.

I think it's normal for your face to be a bit oilier in the very beginning of your course; as you noticed with the clogged pore being pushed out after chilling in your skin for a year (yay, btw!!), the 'tane is doing its job by getting all the crap out of your pores. 

I'm not going to tell you how to feel...I know it sucks and it is not easy to watch your face go from bad to worse.  Just remember that this "purge" that your skin is apparently going through is temporary.

Fingers crossed that things go more smoothly for you  

Day 9 - My mood has been down the past couple of days. I am really trying to work on staying positive. I have said it before, and the only reason why my mood is concerning to me right now is because, I only have 2 active spots on my face. Why am I getting depressed??? My skin is still a little oily, I can notice its starting to lower the oil production.
This morning I woke up and my scalp was absolutely covered in flakes, like totally covered. I have never had dandruff that severe in my life. I emailed my Derm and he wants me to start using 2% Zinc shampoo (thanks @LoveLouisV), which is twice as powerful as head and shoulders. I have noticed that my Selsun Blue has really stopped working. Which ive read is normal, im supposed to be rotating dandruff shampoos so they dont lose their effectiveness. I have always had bad dandruff, and ive also read that dandruff is very very common on Accutane, so its just an extra bad side effect for me.
Today I will not be taking any pills, I am going to lower my dose (with the ok from my derm) to 20 mg a day for the first month, so 40mg every other day. I think regardless of what he tells me after month 1 I will only bump back up to 40mg. I think alot of my side effects will reduce once my oil production lowers, because, contrary to popular belief, dandruff is caused by an oily scalp, not a dry scalp. You can have flaky dry skin, but it is usually very fine dead skin, the dandruff im experiencing is very heavy big flakes, with big irritated patches.

here we go, stay positive everyone, as my wife lieks to tell me, "its only skin"

Day 10 - I thing I have begun my initial breakout. The last 2 days I have developed 3 active pimples, still only have the 3 active pimples right now. But they have all come to head. I usually would have already attacked these things. But, since it is a weekend, I don't have any plans and I will wait until tomorrow morning to get them. A lot of people feel that you should not pop your pimples, I am not one of those people. If it is white and has come to head and is already going down in inflammation, I think it is not a bad thing to help it along. This is not the same as popping a pimple that is nowhere near ready.
I have to stay positive. To remind anyone that is reading this, I didn't have any active pimples when I started. SO to have 3 big ones on my face is pretty bad for me. IT can get a whole lot worse. I know that and that's what you have to be ready to deal with. It's a long process. Wish me luck, I have a big week next week so let's hope these will calm down for me. Now I am going to go out to dinner with the family.
On the seb derm side. It has slowed down a bit today. I am still super flaky all over. Trying not to wear black.

Also, the wife and I had some wine last night, since I did not take a dose, and only had 2 glasses, I've read from numerous people that it's ok to. I also got the ok from my derm about drinking in moderation. I felt totally normal the next day.

ALSO, he said that the drinking thing is blown out of proportion, he said you will do more damage to your liver by taking Motrin than by drinking. He also said the key is not to drink the hard stuff, and spread it out, so don't do like 5 shots at once, have a couple of glasses of wine or a few beers out with your friends.

Day 11 - Today has been pretty good. Depending on how I feel while I'm writing my log, I've noticed, will determine if my log is a positive or negative post. It has opened my eyes as well to reading others posts. You may read someone's post regarding their accutane experience and if they are not in a positive state of mind at the time of the post, it will be very negative and they will over exaggerate things. Just as I have.

I woke up this morning and the two big pimples I had on my problem area have turned white and by 10am they were itching to make an exit. So I helped them along. I'm sure a lot of you get that tingling itchy feeling when a pimple is just about to break the service on its own. This also brings up another point going back to popping pimples. When you get a pimple, how does it resolve itself?? Sure there are the cysts that never come to head and somehow just go away. But for most pimples they will turn into some kind of whitehead. That substance has to get out somehow,and whether you allow it to do it on its own or help it along, the skin will still be punctured. So in all honesty how is it a bad thing to pop a pimple that is ready to be popped??

Oil production is down a bit I just noticed, which is always a good sign. The wife and I went on a good 2 hour walk today. I will say the best part about having this problem with acne is that I don't go out as much with friends, and I know everyone will say oh well that's terrible!! But on the flip side, I have gotten to spend an enormous amount of time with my wife, which has been amazing. We are very lucky in the fact that we actually like each other, unlike a lot of married couples I've gotten to know. Anyways, happy Sunday all!

Day 12 - Updating this log early today. I woke up expecting to have some improvement from yesterday and the day before because I thought those actives would be the only thing I had to deal with. Well, that hasn't been the case, I woke up this morning with another spot starting to form, right in my problem area. My face is starting to look pretty bad right now. The flakiness and dryness have continued to get worse. My scalp is not as bad as it was a few days ago. Feeling pretty down right now.

On a positive note my pores have been decreasing in size a lot. I have always had really large pores on my nose, and they are shrinking in size and all of the plugs from the pores have been making their way out, so my nose has been really rough, and if I scratch it, I can see the plugs coming out. Not sure if this is normal or mostly just dead skin shedding from the seborrhea.

safe to say I am In the middle of my initial breakout that I was hoping would not happen. If this is the worse it gets I'll be happy. I don't have many active spots, but when you combine the spots I have with the marks from the dried up spots, it looks pretty bad. I have been contemplating trying to find a tinted moisturizer of some kind, but I don't know if something like that will help.

So glad to hear about your progress - I guess you probably don't remember in as much detail how your courses went when you were younger!  Accutane is definitely a roller coaster of good things happening with the bad, especially at first.  Then the purge happens (which sounds like you're going through it now), and then the acne pretty much fades into nothing while dry skin takes over your life/soul haha.  But then you get clear skin and it's honestly not a bad tradeoff.

I'm glad you've been able to spend more time with your wife - I'm sure she will be a positive influence on you right now when you need it the most - keep that up!   

As for tinted moisturizers, if you do decide to go that route, I will warn you that it will cause the flakes and dry patches to be a different (weird) color on your face, so be prepared for that.  The only one I'd recommend is found at Sephora (Laura Mercier makes a good one with SPF).  You may be able to find a good OTC one but I never found any that I liked from a drugstore. 

Day 13 - My face has calmed down a bit since day 9-10. I did get a nice couple of blackheads coming up on my nose. These dont bother me too much, they usually go away within a day or so. They are unsightly because I have a pretty large nose.

One side effect from my whole acne fiasco that i was not expecting was weight loss. I have cut out dairy and gluten for the past couple of months thinking it would help my skin, which it hasnt, but I am still doing it just in case lol. I have lost alot of weight. It is hard to get enough calories in. Its amazing how much stuff I used to eat the contained gluten and dairy. So, my new goal is to try and eat alot more. Most of you might be like wtf, your losing weight thats awesome, keep it up. But, I was pretty happy at the weight I was at. It was a little thick, but I didnt mind and I dont think my wife did either. Im starting to feel scrawny. Im also going to pick up lifting, which I had been avoiding because of my seb derm and acne, I didnt want to become too sweaty which could have aided in my acne.

Day 13 is a big day for me and luckily my face has calmed down. It still doesnt look good, and its still worse than it was before accutane, but it isnt terrible. I have a big company dinner tonight and I didnt want to be worrying too much about my face. I will not worry about my face!! Nobody gives a shit about my face.

Anyways, no real active acne forming that I can tell. I like 20mg a day a hell of alot more than 40mg.

Day 14/15 - I missed posting yesterday because I had a pretty busy day. Acne is so funny sometimes and its amazing how it starts messing with your mind. The emotional roller coaster that it causes you to go through. Yesterday my face was still healing from the breakout that I got on day 9-10. So the red marks still look like I have active acne, but those that have acne know what a fading pimple looks like. So midway through the day my face was really aggravated and bothering me, and I when I got home I started inspecting my face. Which never dose much for my confidence. I noticed that I was getting what looked like 2 actives that were coming up right where the breakouts were still healing. This started getting me down and I started worrying if these were going to be big cystic pimple, or pustules or whatever. It turns out that they came up within a few hours and were so small, it would be impossible to pop them. The tiniest little white heads. They were totally gone by this morning.

So as of right nowit is the morning of day 15 so im over 2 weeks into my little journey. I have no active acne going on right now that I can see. There are still spots that are healing and going away but nothing crazy. I for sure notice a difference when I take my pill and the days I dont. From what I read, taking a pill every other day is totally normal. I am going to start upping my dose again and taking 2 days on 1 day off for the rest of the month. I know my derm is going to want me to get up to 80 mg a day. I just really dont think I can handle that dosage. Plus, I read alot that people break out when their dose is increased. So im hoping if I slowly increase my dose it will minimize any breakouts. Seb Derm is still the same as the past few weeks. Yesterday I had to put cortisone on my nose because it was bothering me so much.

On a final note, made a comment on another person's log the other day that was totally out of place, and rude. This person went through an accutane course a few years back and is now suffering with some medical issues and thinks there is a correlation between accutane and thier medical issues. Being the inconsiderate a-hole that I can be sometimes. I commented that all of the issues that they were dealing with were normal medical issues that millions deals with and they had no correlation to a course of accutane. Here's why I was wrong.

1. Accutane could have easily exacerbated his underlying medical issues.
2. I had no right to step into his personal log and tell him he was wrong.
3. The only reason I would comment the things I have were because I want to rationalize me taking a 3rd course.

I have since gone and deleted my comments because they were totally out of place. I hope that none of you out there reading these logs will ever have to suffer the way that this person has, and I hope them a speedy recovery.

Day 16 - Today was a good day. I did start getting a rash on the back of one of my hands today, which I remember happening the last time I was on accutane. I usually just slather some cetaphil on the rash area and it calms down and will go away in a couple of days. I did try a little hydrocortisone on it this time.

I also think I have a couple of new pimples come up next to my nose, which is a place that likes to break out. I have been using the clear face sunscreen neutrogina. Something tells me that it does not agree with my face because every time I come home and wash it off I notice a few spots starting to come up. Like irritated clogged pores. Sometimes they don't turn into anything and sometimes they will turn into a full blown pimple.

To some people this might sound funny, but, my face is relatively clear so when I do get a pimple it is pretty magnified. That's what has been causing me so much anxiety. I agonize when I notice I'm getting a new spot.

Day 17/19 - Nothing really crazy to report. I did have a lot of sun exposure this weekend and didn't get burnt. I was using spf 55 and have a nice wide brim bucket hat. The rashes on my arms have died down a lot, they are still there, but barely visible. I just make sure I put some heavy moisturizer on them at night and make sure they stay moisturizer during the day and it doesn't progress and there is no inflammation. I have 2 actives right now. One on my neck where I shave, which is huge. But for some reason it won't pop. I have always gotten these, even post accutane 9 years ago. I think it is more ingrown hair like. I also have what looks like an inflamed black head right in my problem area (next to my nose). I hope it calms down. It is just making the area red and irritated looking. I had a great week last week. 2 very important dinners and I wasn't broken out too bad.

Little personal note. We might be moving out of our one bedroom apartment into a house. My wife's mom has a client that just recently moved in with his new wife and does not want to sell his house, or rent it out to someone random. It's in a great neighborhood and he actually wants less in rent than we are paying for our one bedroom apartment. So after the increase in utilities it will all work out to be the same as what we are paying now, but we get a 3 bedroom house. Going to look at it this afternoon.

ALCOHOL -

Ok so a little background of my drinking life. I would say that I am more than just a moderate drinker. I dont think I have a drinking problem because I have no problem what so ever going a month without drinking. It also has never effected my life. Both of those things I think will tell if someone has a drinking problem. I do love to drink though. It would not be uncommon for me to go 4-5 nights a week drinking. I am not talking about going out drinking, mostly have 2-3 glasses of wine at night with dinner and with the wife. I know it is still alot but I enjoy it and I have had no health issues because of it, and the benefits of having red wine for the heart are unquestionable.

So that takes me to around October, I started having this acne problem and thought I would try everything, so I did the whole 30 diet, so no drinking for 30 days, and then I thought I should just keep it to once a week from November until January(it made no difference in my acne btw). This brings me to the beginning of my accutane course. I was going to be very strict and not drink during the course, but even my Derm was like, "dude its not bad to drink on accutane. Dont get shitfaced, but a few beers are not going to do any damage." So since ive started I have had a couple of nights of drinking. Only wine and only a couple of drinks.

My conclusion? It suck!! I get so dehydrated and will wake up with the worse headache, and this is going to bed almost totally sober. I had 1 glass of wine 2 nights ago, and it really bothered me. I had trouble sleeping and felt so achy. I think the alcohol might just intensify the side effects for me, because I never would drink to the point where I would get hung over, but it seems like im hurting in the morning just after 2 glasses of wine.

Does anyone else have this issue??

Day 20 - Just looking at my face this morning, I have noticed A LOT of black heads. I never noticed that I even had blackhead before, but my t zone is full of them. Im not sure if this is the medication pushing out what was really deep in my pored or what, but my skin texture has gotten pretty rough looking and irritated. Hopefully these will come out on their own and my skin will die down. I am going to start taking 2 pills (40mg) every 3 days now to just get ready to up my dosage again. I would like to stay at 20mg/day for a long time because the side effects are so minimal, but the summer will be brutal, and I just noticed that my ears are really burnt. So over the weekend they must have gotten toasted, but I didnt feel it.

My total number should be around 9500mg, ive only take like 600mg, so i need to step it up moving forward.

It might be in my head, but i for sure notice a difference on the day i take the medication and the days I do not.

Last thing, I have noticed, the red marks on my face have actually started looking more red and more scar like. Normally if i get a pimple, it will leave a red mark for a week or 2 and it will be gone. My red marks have actually gotten more defined and a deeper red and they are already 2 weeks old. Its really weird, maybe its because the skin is irritated from the accutane.

day 21 - So officially 3 weeks. Unlike alot of the posts on here I will not say, "oh how the time has flown." It has been a long 3 weeks. I do have 2 actives that are coming up. One was the blackhead that I got a few days ago, that has now turned into a little inflamed whitehead. The second is just a regular looking pustule that looks like its coming in over an old red mark. I also have 2 pimples on my neck where I shave. My skin has been doing pretty good other than that. My flaky scalp has calmed down a bit which is nice, and it is not as itchy as it was before. I have debated about putting up pictures simply because I my acne is not that bad, and it is really hard to capture it on my phone camera. But I have plenty of pictures, I think I will add a couple. It is hard to get them off my phone.

One last thing, I read a clickbate article today about the top 5 things people regret on their deathbed. One was that people wished they cared alot less of how others saw them, and to be themselves 100%. The number one response was to be happier in life, not worry about the little things, because looking back those little things didnt mean shit in the big pictures. You make your own happiness and you have complete control of your happiness. So make a choice to be happy today, even if you have acne or are dealing with some kind of insecurity. Life is so terribly short to live it unhappy.

Day 22 - I took a pill last night instead of this morning to try and get my dosage up before my derm appointment. Here's a recap of my dosage.

started out 40mg/day
dropped to 20mg/day
now I'm going to do 80mg/3days. Day 1 morning, day two at night, day 3 no pill. That way the pills are all spread out 36 hours apart. I was going to do 2days on one day off, but this is more consistent.

I know my derm will want to up my dose to at least 60-80 mg next month, and I am not ready for that.

Acne update. I have a very angry pimple on my upper lip near the corner of my mouth that is cause my whole lip to swell. I am cold sore prone so I know usually when I get a pimple that agrivates my lips too much I will get a cold sore soon after. So that is fun.

Other than that, my face looked really good in the mirror this morning.