I'm 17 I'm a BOY and started Accutane when I was about 15 This medicine is very effective in a positive way it helped clear my face full of acne in about 4 months but I did not get to finish the whole 6 months because insurance canceled while I was on Accutane MYORISAN brand 20mg I had no bad side affects accept for chapped lips which is very common and that was it.

        One year later I'm going back on Accutane to finish up and clear up my face completely I still have a good amount of acne. Now this brand of Accutane I'm taking is called AMNEAL 20 mg the first day I start taking it I feel normal, The second day I have a little chest pain for a couple minutes but feel normal, The third day I wake up around 4:30am I then took the pill about 5:00am Then left to work at 5:20am while I was on the road My vision started to blur and I thought it was because I was just tired and it felt like if you were to look into a light bulb and then look away that's what I was seeing I didn't want to believe it was the medicine THEN MY HEAD felt like there was a tight band around it but I just thought it was my Bennie but no it wasn't. I'm finally at work at 6:20 I get out of my truck and walk around I feel a bad headache and then feel like throwing up and then eventually throw up stomach acid so I'm thinking it was because I didn't eat anything with my Accutane so I then go to Panera Bread on my way there at a intersection I just had to get out of my truck and start throwing up nothing except water and coffee and the pain started to continue luckily none was there finally get to Panera bread order a breakfast sandwich and left to go in the back of the building parking lot to throw up rolling on the floor and just waiting to die I didn't want to go to the hospital because I didn't think they could do much finally I feel a little better so then I go back in to Panera and eat my breakfast sandwich and felt a little bit better and then a couple hours latter I feel like I'm going back to normal so I am not sure whether its the reason I didn't eat or an allergic reaction I'm going to take another pill with food and see what happens. 

Accutane was the only thing that ever gave me clear skin, and that feeling was just great. My lifestyle and diet could be a mess and it kept my skin clear. If nothing works, I'd say just go for it.

However, I recommend everyone to only go on it short term, which is the usual duration recommended by your skin doctor, I would presume a year max is probably still ok, but only based on my own experience

Otherwise, unless you are that special few (of whom i'm so envious of), you will start to see all the side effects appear.

Accutane past a few months started messing with my stomach and bowel movements. Still nothing that is crazy so I stayed on it.  Then I started getting back pains. Still, nah clear skin is sooooooo much more important. A year passed and I find myself losing hair. Ok, that got me worried but no way was I going off accutane. By then I was already taking a dosage that is lesser, because  without a completely valid reason, no sane doctor will allow you to take the full dosage for past a certain duration, which can range from 4-8 months depending on the doctor and how much you can take per day.

Sad to say, the lesser dosage did not keep me clear, but still, I chose to continue taking it even for that 80% clear skin. That's just how persistent I was.

By 1.5 years, the hairloss was quite a concern I had to start on minoxidil. Minoxidil did great until I realized I landed myself in deeper shit because once you stop minoxidil, the hair that grew back will very likely go as well. So I had no choice but to stay on minoxidil. But that is another story altogether.

Even with all that, I continued on accutane as I continue getting more stomach problems.

One fine day, I decided I have had enough and I stopped. And though that was the start of a lot of the side effects lessening in intensity (they never go away completely), a while later I got hit with an autoimmune disorder which destroyed my life and when I did a search, I realized that accutane has a possibility of causing auto immune problems. Oh, if only I knew about it earlier...btw an autoimmune illness is medically incurable. And though I can't say for sure accutane is the cause for it, I can't say for sure it isn't.

Therefore, now. I always tell people, it is ok to take accutane, as a matter of fact, please do take it if you really want to and need to. But never take it long term (and past the recommended cumulative dosage), you will wreck your body in horrifying ways. We all want clear skin, but never do it at the loss of the healthy functioning of another body part.

I have always had terrible cystic acne growing up that started when I was around 9-10 years old. Over the years I tried every damn treatment you could think of but nothing would get rid of it, or even get it under control. The products I tried would all just clear it up a little bit, but not enough to really notice much of a difference. I had an extreme morning and evening regimen of vigorously washing my face and putting acne creams on. If I ever once forgot to wash my face or put the creams on, I would wake up with the worst breakouts of my life the next day. I absolutely could not forget or skip a day, ever. I took birth control for my acne, but it only helped a small amount. I always thought once I got out of highschool the acne would just go away eventually, but it never did. Finally at age 23 with a face full of zits, I thought, ?This is it. This acne is never going away.? And I started looking into more drastic treatments. This is where the accutane came in. Let me tell you this was no walk in the park. I went through the hardest 6 months of my life while taking this stuff. It made my lips and skin soo unbearably dry. Describing it as uncomfortable would be an understatement. If I ever left my house without vasoline, I was absolutely screwed. My lips would get so dry that they would stick together and I couldn?t even get my mouth open. One time when they got stuck together, I forced them apart, and the skin from my bottom lip got pulled off and was stuck to my upper lip. It was bad, and nasty to be quite honest. I felt sooo tired all the time. I would sleep for 12 hours and wake up still feeling exhausted. I felt so fatigued. I am a full time college student, and school got extremely difficult while I was on this stuff. I just could not for the life me concentrate, and was always falling asleep in class. I couldn?t find time to get homework done and study because I was always so exhausted. I ended up failing TWO classes while I was taking this stuff. And I had never failed a class before in my life! I was also experiencing memory loss, which honestly freaked me out a bit. I was constantly forgetting things, leaving things at people?s houses, forgetting to do things, which is very unlike me. It also caused me to gain a ton of weight! Which was terribleeee. The weight gain was probably the worst part for me. I would literally go days without eating and STILL gain weight. I was always starving, but was always afraid to eat because I was blowing up like a balloon. I probably gained over 30 pounds during the 6 months I took this stuff. And then as soon as I stopped taking it, the weight fell off without me even having to try. 

However, despite all the terrible side effects, I still have to say I feel it was worth it. My acne was controlling my life, and I finally feel free now. I think what I like most is not having to do a full face of make up every time I leave the house. It feels like a true gift, because I always hated wearing make up. I no longer have to wash my face or put acne products on at all. It?s been about six months now since I stopped taking accutane, and all the side effects are gone. I?m back at my normal weight, and my skin is still completely clear. As others have mentioned, please be very aware of the side effects. If you can, try to take it during a time when you don?t have too much going on in your life. Also, you can pretty much expect to have no dating life whatsoever while taking this stuff, so be prepared to spend some time alone.