February 9, 2014

Accutane: the beginning

If you've read my blog even sporadically over the years, then my acne is no new subject. At the beginning of 2013 I finally had health insurance and could see a doctor to help me get it under control. She had me on about 6 different medications, and in the fall of 2013 my battle was looking like it had been won. My skin wasn't perfect, and my doctor had recommended accutane since everything else I had been on wasn't working 100%. Sick of ingesting pills that made me sick, I decided to not take any more medication & see how my skin did. It was healing more & more, until December when my acne came back in full force on my chest & back. After 8 months of being on all of these meds, my acne cycle looked like it was returning.

In January i saw my doctor again,  and talked to her to see if Accutane was still on the table. I wanted to catch my acne at the beginning of the cycle before it got horrible again. Plus, another benefit to Accutane is that it can rid your skin of acne scarring since it sort of forces your skin to start over at its base.  Knowing that laser resurfacing can cost hundreds of dollars per session and isn't covered by my insurance, this is a major point of interest for me. Thankfully acvutane was still on the table,  but not without warning.  The biggest being to not get pregnant whilst on the drug, as it guarantees birth defects. After two blood tests (these are standard to check if you're pregnant) & another doctor's appointment, I was deemed eligible to go on it.

Cut to today,  which is day two of taking accutane.  I can already feel my skin drying out, which is good because I can tell it's working. I'm going to try to post updates each month because there's so much scary information available (personally, what I found initially scared me off) and I want to provide a real account if what I experience. 

Have you ever taken accutane? What was your experience like? Let me know in the comments!