raprazant

heh... dr. rap they look to me to be non-inflammatory whiteheads as in the pore wall has not broken down. this would explain the lack of redness. I'm just guessing though, hell they could be fever blisters for all i know.

whiteheads are clogged CLOSED pores where the comedone has reached the surface. blackheads are clogged OPEN pores where the comedone has reached the surface. blackheads don't have to be black. accutane pretty much lessens the formation of both but understand that even people without noticable acne still have blackheads.

if the comedones are at the surface and you can extract them without causing any abrasion to the surrounding skin, go for it. it will probably help the pores to close up faster. i used to get the same condition around my nose and i would spend hours pulling them out with pin tweezers. i'm glad i did because it caused the gaping holes that were my pores to shrink up. that's odd that they gave you only 5 months supply since they recommend a six month course and even more odd that they gave it to

your pore size after taking accutane will always be smaller than it was before treatment. i'm pretty sure the size of your sebaceous glands will always be smaller as well. slight reenlargement may occur.

this is really the million dollar question. the first person i ever knew who took accutane had the most severe acne i'd ever seen and experienced complete remission to this day. he finished his course over ten years ago. i and many others on the other hand with only mild to moderate persistent acne have experienced only temporary remission. roche doesn't even know why there are variances in its effectiveness. i'd say it's due to a combination of hormone production intensity, environmental factor

i've had slight reenlargement of some of the pores around my nose but that's it.

good post and you're right, many times there are whiteheads, that if left alone, will become cystic and most likely scar. abscession below the surface is responsible for this "ice pick" scarring. it's a hard call though to recommend to someone, over a messageboard, that they go after said whiteheads. i've learned to do it efficiently purely through my own experience.

are you taking 20mg twice a day or 40mg once a day? i'm 215lbs. and i take 2x20mg a day. if you start to feel the side effects become more acute skip a day. it's not the intensity of the dosage that makes accutane effective it's the duration. i would say do not rub your face while washing, in fact i've found that any contact with your face causes irritation and will increase the redness. i don't even explicitly wash my face rather i let the water from the shower run over my face and then i pad i

i feel for you sara. you're a classic case of the female with rollercoaster hormones. that's why bcp worked so well for you because it totally regulated your estrogen levels. now that you're off of it you're becoming aware of how closely-related your breakouts are to your hormone fluctuations. i've known a few woman who have had this condition acutely and accutane didn't work as well for them as it worked for people like me with highly persistent moderate acne. if you're in the fourth month i wo

yes, it's very common and as long as you don't screw with your skin you shouldn't have any scarring. don't mistake red marks for scarring because they will appear darker while on accutane. it's due to the thiness of you skin caused by rapid sloughing.

sorry it took me a while to reply, i was out of town for the holiday. ahhhh, dermabrasion is a no-no while on or after taking a rhetinoid. they will tear your fragile facial skin up, even the synthetics like diff/taz. unfortunately differin, being a transdermal, will only deliver the rhetinoid locally in much smaller amounts. once you stop taking it the half-life of the small amount that's in your system will disappear quickly. that's the m.o. with accutane: megadose your body with it and the rh

retin-a is a transdermal therefore you'll never be able to absorb as much of the rhetinoid as you would accutane. the dryness and flakiness is similar to accutane but the redness should be a little less. results with accutane should appear in 1-3 months. retin-a and accutane are both rhetinoids, there function is similar. i personally have never had any significant results using retin-a.

that is odd, but it's got to be from the thinning effect.

please, don't be freaked out. especially by second hand anecdotal information from people who have never taken it.

great post cr! check your pm.

it could be some form of dermatitus but it doesn't sound like perioral dermatitus so i'm just blindly guessing.

unless you're a hemophiliac you've got no worries.

if the incidence and persistence of said pimples are enough to effect the quality of your life and have also proven to be resistent to less controversial treatments then i would say that you're a candidate. i'm not going to recommend accutane to anyone but i can tell you what to expect from it. accutane will make most cases of acne less severe indefinitely and less persistent for at least 1-2 years. i've never had much luck with topicals so i won't blow smoke up your ass and claim that you'll ha

good point, it's the period of acne-free skin.

there's nothing to say that an individual cannot have hormone levels that will cause them to have acne as a teen as well as throughout middle age. i know this doesn't help but there's no reason to believe that suddenly @24 your acne is going to just stop. a hormonal change occurring at this point would be atypical. in my case i didn't have acne until my twenties. most everyone else i've come into contact with are the opposite. only after doing research online did i meet people with adult acne.

prolonged use of antibiotics have two negative consequences: suppression of your immune system's ability to produce antibodies [micro]. ab resistent bacteria [macro].

it's no bother. the incidence and severity of pimples are dramatically reduced. you have to remember though that your skin will be less durable and any manipulation of pimples will be more likely to cause scarring. dr fulton is referring to adolescent onset acne not adult onset acne. the latter does not "burnout" at 23-24. try 40. if he doesn't distinguish between the two you have a clear indicator as to the depth of his knowledge regarding acne.

yes, usually this will occur with adult onset acne. rarely in adolescent acne. yes, it's much less severe. severity being measured in size and depth of cysts. adult acne is a different animal than adolescent acne. often severe adolescent acne, if left alone, will eventually halt by itself. accutane will expedite this process. adult acne is very pesistent and will not lessen on its own until much later in life.

chances are, if you've got it at 22 you'll have it for life. acne represents a specific hormonal state in your body and by 22 the major adolescent hormonal changes have ceased. the next change will be in your 40's as your test levels start to peter off [no pun intended].

wow, that's high but if you can tolerate the side effects i suppose it's alright. roche and the government say that only people with severely cystic nodular acne are "supposed" to take accutane because they are paranoid about the liability issues surrounding it. this is crap, in reality anybody with persistent acne and a normal functioning liver is a candidate for treatment. the age issue may or may not be a contraindication but any derm worth his weight in feces should be able to detect signs o