At the ripe
age of 24, I developed the worst acne of my life. You’ve read how I suffered with
eczema, and how Epaderm and antibiotics kept it all under control, but towards the end of my
time in the US it all just became too much. I visited my doctor to see if we
could do anything to get it back under control. She looked back at my history
and saw that I had been suffering with acne on and off for over 10 years.
Over the
last 10 years my doctor had prescribed me topical treatments including Zineryt,
Panoxyl, all the major acne fighting contraceptive pills and two variations of
antibiotics. Aside from this I had tried Proactiv, Kheil’s, Clinique and
various cheaper and expensive brands. Only the combination of antibiotics and
Epaderm kept my acne under control for a short period of time.
It didn’t
matter if I was surrounded by friends, strangers or family, my skin caused me
pain, both physically and emotionally. There are people out there with much
worse skin than me who embrace it, and I absolutely applaud those that do. But
by this point, I had had enough and was willing to try anything and pay the
price too.
My doctor
decided that it was time to go ahead with Roaccutane (or Accutane) treatment.
Now I won’t
go into the ins and outs of what Roaccutane does – there is a great blog here
from Get The Gloss where they actually interview a
doctor about this in greater detail and I certainly do not have the
qualifications do be doing that.
What I do
want to talk about is my experience with Roaccutane.
I was first
prescribed Roaccutane at the beginning of November at a 60mg dose per day. This
is a high dose to start with, most of the people I had spoken to about the
treatment started somewhere around 20mg. The dermatologist keeps a very close
eye on you through the whole process and will alter the dose from month to
month depending on how you are coping with it. In my case, he has kept it the
same for 3 months.
Below are
some progression pictures from the day I started roaccuatne to the end of my third month.
Now for the
negatives… I want to tell you it’s a miracle and it has been super easy, but
the reality is, Roaccutane is hard-core.
One of the
biggest side effects is the dryness. My lips are constantly chapping; my arms
and hands are also unusually dry. I am also experiencing very VERY minor nose
bleeds when I blow my nose. An upside of the dryness is that my hair doesn’t
seem to get greasy as easily, I don’t need to wash it every single day (BONUS).
In the first
week or two, I had some sensitivity to light, but this was mostly artificial
lighting that caused me problems, and it has since subsided.
My feeling
towards the treatment so far has been that; because I have suffered with acne
for a long period, suffering slight side effects for up to 6 months is a small
price to pay to be comfortable in my own skin.
I still
have another 3 months left taking roaccutane and plan to post again about the
products I used to keep the side effects at bay.
Check out
some other Roaccutane stories:
More
Roaccutane blogs/stories :
- The Daily Mail - Beauty blogger who battled severe acne for 10 years reveals how she transformed her skin in an emotional video diary
- Lydia Elise Millen – The Naked Truth – A Year Since Roaccutane
- Orlagh Claire – My Acne Story: How Roaccutane Changed My Life
**Word of
advice: you cannot get Roaccutance/Accutane prescribed by a GP, you must be
referred to a dermatologist. I would recommend you go private if you can, the
NHS took 3 months to acknowledge my need, 5 months later, still no
appointment.**
