Started Accutane about a week ago, anyone have any experiences?

[diablo]

I was on Accutane longer than any other patient in the dermatologist's clinic... which out of 5 derms, actually meant something. Accutane should be compared to the nuclear bomb of acne medication. Not only in terms of how effective it is, but also in relation to the side effects. I constantly had dry lips, red eyes, and chapped hands. Thankfully that's all I had... my little brother was prescribed it and he almost became suicidal. If I were you I would keep track of how you feel each week. Each day is what doctors recommend, but only because they're anal-retentive and don't understand that writing a "feelings log" every single day is bound to make you feel worse than you are... after all, would a normal person have to write how they feel every day? Stick to once a week - you'll get a good baseline and be able to compare what you're thinking to how you felt at an earlier point. If you notice a change in your seratonin levels... i.e. you get depressed... then definitely bring this change to your doc's attention.

So, now that I'm done scaring you, Accutane (or as I believe the generic is called, isotretinoin) will do you a world of good when it comes to increasing your self-confidence. Take about 400 IU's of Vitamin E every day, pack up on Visine, and you should be good to go in no time. The only reason I was on it for so long was because both of my parents had hopeless acne... it was really only because of accutane that I wasn't cursed with the same pockmarked skin.

 

[Zerix]

I bought some Vit E today, started taking 1 a day (400 iu). Hopefully some great improvement comes from it!

 

[RedPill]

[Originally posted this in an earlier thread]

I took Accutane when I was 17. It was like friggin chemotherepy. I looked sick all the time, felt very tired, developed this bad body odor (think of rotting pork chops baking in the sun on the seat of your car) and extremely bad breath, had very dry skin/cracked lips, and had to have several additional blood tests for some reason or another. The dermatologist cut me off of it a month short of the full cycle because I developed some severe infections in my hands and feet. I ended up having surgery on the big toe of my left foot to have a bunch of the infection drained/cleaned up. It was pretty painful.

Fortunately, it cured my severe acne! :cheer: All the bad symptoms from the treatment cleared up when I got off it. My experience was much worse than the norm, but I don't regret trying it. It was a last resort, and it worked. I still got the ocassional breakout, but never anything close to how things were before I went on it.

Don't let my experience discourage you from going on it though. The sh!t is serious medicine, and acne is a nasty condition. Sometimes you gotta play through the pain.

 

[mhs09]

I'm entering my third month of this stuff and i've practically ran out of acne already. i only have around 3 nodules left but the scars are really dark and red people cant even notice my face has cleared up because they think my scars are my acne so they don't see the difference.I'm just tired of people just looking at my scars now it gets pretty annoying when people just look at all your scars while you talk to them so i just want something that will make them go away as soon as possible. i only have scars on my cheeks so i was wondering if the vitamin E is the best thing to use for the scars because i was reading that a few people that use vitamin E for scars have an allergic reaction to the vitamin E and how long does it take to get noticeable results from the Vitamin E?