I’m guessing you’re expecting a wonderful post about some miracle, natural home remedy acne solution that I’ve found and has cleared up my acne in no time flat. But that’s not the case. Well, I guess that depends how you see it. About 6 months ago, I made the decision to go on Accutane. I actually talked about it in a post once to get second opinions from people. Most of the opinions were negative but I also saw many positive ones. So once I started taking accutane, I decided to keep that info out of my blog so I wouldn’t have other people’s opinions changing my own.
So let’s go back to the beginning. I’ve always had a little bit of acne. Nothing to get super upset about, but enough that I saw a dermatologist when I was in high school, when I was in college, and after college. But it wasn’t until I started CrossFit and was competing, that my acne got out of control. And when I say out of control, I mean it was incredibly painful to the touch. I had bad cystic acne that hurt when I was just putting on make up. But since the acne was so bad, putting on make up was my only choice. I’m not sure if it was CrossFit that changed my complexion, but I’m almost certain it had to do with it because of the changes in estrogen and other hormones.
Anyways, after trying many different home remedies such as oil pulling and oil cleansing, changes to my eating habits, removing fish oil from my diet, consuming cod liver oil, and different essential oils, I decided to try some prescription strength drugs. After trying spironolactone and other prescription drugs as well as topical medication, I was finally at a loss. It had been almost 3 years of fighting this cystic acne that was going to lead to much worse scarring if I didn’t do something about it. So I decided to try Accutane out and my dermatologist immediately agreed.
Accutane is a high dose of vitamin A, that you take on a daily basis. Most treatments, like mine, are around 6 months. Some people have to do multiple sessions, but not everyone. Accutane is taken very seriously by not only the doctor, but also the state. It is a state regulation that you must be on birth control while taking Accutane because the birth defects are so awful. There are also other side effects such as depression, muscle and joint pain, extremely dry skin and eyes, and a whole hell of a lot of other things, but those are the things I experienced. The process is quite tedious. Here’s the process you go through every month: get your birth control (remember, no babies), get your blood drawn so they can check that your liver is just fine, then go to the doctor a couple days later where you have to do a urine test to make sure you’re not pregnant, then you get your prescription, then you have to take a test online all about practicing safe sex, once you pass that test, you can then drop off your prescription to finally get your month supply. Then do this many more times until you are off the medication. Annoying, but so worth it in my opinion.
You may be asking why the hell I’m even writing about this on a paleo recipe blog. Which is understandable. But I want to share my experience with people who are trying so hard to change their diet to fix their body issues, and those things are just not working. The more I’ve eaten paleo, the more I’ve found out how many things can be cured through diet alone. I rarely get sick, I sleep better, I have more energy, my depression went away. So many things can change through diet, but my acne did not seem to be one of them. And if it was, it would have taken me YEARS and many scars to find out those reasons. I’m sharing all this information with you in hopes that if you are ever thinking about taking this prescription drug, you have another opinion. A positive one.
I had a truly positive experience with the drug. Not to say that I didn’t have some ups and downs, but most of my 6 month experience was a good one. Here were some of my symptoms:
- The worst symptom by far has been dry lips. You know when you get a sunburn and it peels? Well imagine that happening every single hour, of every single day, for 6 months. It was miserable. By far the worst thing. Not having chapstick on hand truly felt like a meth addict not having his drug. Terrible description, but that’s seriously how it felt. I rarely stop biting or picking at my lips. I have a new habit I need to break.
- Dry skin and red skin. Mostly my face was the only thing that got dry, but it was also my ears, my nose and my hair. So I exfoliated my face daily with one of those soft bristle face rotating brushes. A cheap one. And moisturized a lot. I didn’t stop wearing make up until my skin settled down after the second month, I was too embarrassed.
- Dry, breaking hair. My hair thinned out and my hair stylist said it seemed to be breaking easily. After 4 months, that passed and my hair got a lot better. Wish it would have affected my leg hair, that would have been cool.
- My joints and muscles hurt A LOT about 3-5 months in. Workouts were much more uncomfortable to the point that it hurt to walk. That passed after 5 months.
- Moody and depressed. I got REALLY depressed about 4 months or so into the accutane. I mean, depressed to the point that I couldn’t get off the couch. I couldn’t figure out why I was sad or what was wrong, but I was so unhappy. I fought some depression when I was growing up, so I was more likely to have some while on the drug. It went away with time.
- Super red face. I’m pale when I stay away from the sun, so my neck and my face were completely opposite colors. Weird looking.
So I’m going to share some pictures with you. Disclaimer: these pictures may be frightening. And I’m sure some mean people out there will leave mean comments that will bum me out, but I want to share with you what a huge difference the medication made. I no longer have any acne, only red scars remain, which should go away over time. If they don’t all go away, I plan on doing some chemical peels and/or laser treatment to get rid of the scars.
In the end, I am incredibly happy with the results of accutane and extremely happy that I went on the prescription. I’m not sure what will happen in the future and if I will have to get back on it, but I know that my acne will never be as bad or as painful as it was in the past. This prescription has done wonders for me and if anyone ever asked me, I would recommend it to them. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it! But remember, this prescription affects everyone differently. Just because I had a good experience doesn’t mean someone else will. Thanks for listening. You’re my favorite. Please feel free to share your experiences, but do not hate on me for sharing my own experience with it. Kthanksbye.
Congratulations! I am so happy that this worked out for you.
I also suffered from cystic acne for years and when I finally decided to take Accutane, it was truly life-changing. Prior to Accutane, I never would have considered leaving the house without a LOT of makeup. After, no problem. It was only after completing my round of Accutane that I realized how much energy I had been using stressing about the condition of my skin. Acne can really exhaust you emotionally and psychologically (not to mention physically, when it is painful like ours).
And this is not a scary warning, but just a heads-up that after many years of great skin following Accutane, I am now pregnant (with a boy) and my acne is back with a vengeance. Before, I never had acne anywhere but my face; I now have cysts on my back and neck. I am more blasé about it now, because there really is nothing that I can do about it (except go back to wearing three layers of foundation), but I spent a few weeks really upset about it when it started. I will probably be pregnant and/or breastfeeding for the next 4-5 years of my life, so my next round of Accutane is far off, but I admit that I sometimes daydream about it as a “reward” awaiting me in the future. So if this happens to you (if/when you have kids), just be aware that it’s a possibility and don’t stress too much about it.
Congratulations! I went on accutane in college and it has been 14 years since (I’m old). I get blemishes here and there but NOTHING like what I dealt with for the 6 years leading up to accutane. You gotta do you and what is best for your body. Jerks be damned.
In my years during college, I continued with cystic acne that I had during highschool. The big, swollen lumpy kind of acne and what made it really bad for me was I also had it on my back, my chest and even upper arms. This was tough for someone growing up living on the Southern CA beaches. I tried the antibiotic tx’s but nothing made a dent. Finally, I did the Accutane tx and in 6 months all of the swollen bumps were gone, basically for the rest of my life (30 years now). Accutane is a scary, but 6 months cured a problem I had for almost 10 years and continued antibiotics over that time frame did not address. I would encourage anyone dealing with the trauma of cystic acne to seek a good doc and see if Accutane will work for them.
Congratulations. I use something called “Clarifoam” by prescription which helps keep my skin “in check.” And I’m 47!
Hi Juli! You look great!! I’m glad you had a positive experience. Thank you for sharing your story! You’re awesome. 🙂
Good for you, Juli! Like a lot of other posters, I took Accutane. It was about four years ago, and until the last few months (while dealing with a very stressful work project), I’ve hardly had any acne. It was inconvenient, but so worth it. You look great!
Hey Juli, I’ve followed you for a year + now, but this is my first time commenting. Thanks for sharing your story and pictures. Very brave as always. And I second what Melissa said…you are beautiful in all your states.
– Cleo
I work in healthcare and there are ALWAYS options. Kudos to you for trying everything before running to the Dr. So many people think that people in healthcare are the “end all be all” and we know all the right answers but lots of times it is simple changes in diet/lifestyle that make the biggest changes. You look great, don’t let anyone try to give you crap about taking the medication either. Obviously, it was the best choice for you as a patient! So many people don’t weigh the risk to the benefit and sometimes sanity is the biggest pay off so congrats! I love your work and you look great!!! Keep your head up, and don’t listen to the haters. The closer to the top you get, the more people are gonna try to bring you down! <3 your recipies!
I have tried everything out there for acne and even went through 2 rounds of Accutane in my younger years. I am now 40 and still struggle with it. I found one cleanser that has been really helpful which I wanted to pass along now that you are done with Accutane. It’s called Black Soap. Look it up and feel free to read about it. I think you might like it as a maintenance cleanser as it helps to prevent acne and dry up anything you’ve already got. I know how frustrating it is to deal with! You look great.
I also had really bad cystic acne in my early 20s. I tried everything Western medicine had. I didn’t know about the diet connection at that time, but I wish I had. I did 2 rounds of Accutane – the first one was when I was 24, and it was only 40 mgs. The dermatologist I was seeing was too scared about the medication to go any higher. It worked great, but started coming back within 2 years. I found another derm and went on another round when I was 26, this time at a much higher dose – up to 140 mgs daily, which was just above the maximum amount for my weight. It worked wonderfully, and up until recently, I said it was one of the best things I’d ever done. The only lasting side effect that I was aware of was dry lips and eyes. The dry lips aren’t nearly as bad as they were while I was on Accutane, but it’s almost 10 years later and my lips still peel and I won’t go anywhere w/out lip balm. The dry eyes have gotten better. I used to have a hard time being under a ceiling fan because it would dry out my eyes so horribly.
It’s only recently, after dealing with some mysterious health issues for awhile and getting diagnosed with leaky gut, among other things, that I’ve started to realize what lasting effects Accutane has had on me. Shortly after my last course of it, I started getting patches of hyperpigmentation on my face. I thought it was hormone related from a few years of being on the pill (which is a horrible thing to do to your body, by the way – double whammy that they make you go on it while on Accutane). But after years of being off the pill, the spots just kept spreading, to the point that most of my cheeks and forehead are covered. So I went from having to wear makeup to cover the acne, to having to wear makeup to cover the melasma. At least melasma isn’t painful!! I finally made the connection recently that Accutane caused my leaky gut, which caused my melasma. I finally found a supplement that is helping to heal my leaky gut (zinc carnosine) and I’m starting to see the melasma begin to break up. Leaky gut comes with a whole host of other issues though.
I won’t deny that Accutane was a life saver for me at the time. Though I’m prone to occasional depression, I didn’t experience it at all on Accutane. I was so friggin’ happy that my cystic acne was clearing up! Now I wish I’d tried changing my diet first, as it’s been 10 years dealing w/other issues that I didn’t know were caused by Accutane. Obviously you tried that route! Now that you’re off of Accutane (and hopefully off of birth control!), you might consider taking some steps to both get your hormones back on track (fermented cod liver oil and lots of healthy saturated fats are good for that) and protect your gut. Supplementing with some glutamine for awhile would definitely not be a bad idea. Some high quality colostrum (Synertek or Surthrival) would be great as well. Accutane does amazing things for acne, no doubt. Just be aware that it can have some unseen and long lasting effects, but you can take steps now to make sure they’re minimal.
Despite the warning, I’m very happy for you and your clear skin! I know how good it feels!! 🙂