Roaccutane Month 1 | Acne

Hello, Hola, Bonjour.

I wanted to document my journey on Roaccutane, to hopefully help someone, compare other journey's with mine and put it out there that acne is a thing, people get spots and it is normal.

When you hit puberty you're lucky if you don't get spots, but in most cases these spots go. For others this isn't always the case. 

Date: January 2014 I went to the doctors to get some medicine to see if I could get rid of my acne, which at the time was very mild, but definitely not just 'a few spots'. Plus when I was hormonal these would of course worsen. I was prescribed Zineryt which is a solution you apply to your face once in the morning and once in the evening. This was a miracle worker, it completely cleared my acne after a few months. Around seven months later my acne returned so I went back and was given Duac another gel cream which you only apply once a day (evening) and Trimethoprim. None of these worked, in fact I found out Trimethoprim was for water infections which actually gave me an allergic reaction and the cream did nothing. Then I got more cream which was called Differin which did nothing either, by this time my acne had worsened and I was getting fed up. Went back again and was prescribed Lymecyline which is an antibiotic so you have to wait 3 months for it to start to work, which after those three months my acne hadn't worsened but still was not getting better. Again I went to the doctors and they finally referred me to a Dermatologist (a skin specialist) which was a huge relief because the doctors were pacifying me with tonnes of medicines and creams and I knew by going to someone who actually specialises in skin and acne, it would finally get sorted. Date: May 2016. 

Just to add about my acne, I was never too self conscious about it but I liked to cover it up as I felt when people spoke to me they were talking to my acne or looking at my spots. Some days were better than others, I would never think about having to leave the house with makeup on everyday but I'm not going to sit here and sugar coat it and say that it didn't bother me at all. 

Date: July 26th 2016. The day I was prescribed with Roaccutane. 

For those who don't know Roaccutane/Accutane/Isotretinoin is an extremely harsh drug which can only be prescribed by specialists which in a short version brings out all the acne from under the skin and then clears it up. With this drug there is no case of it not working, it will. It just takes time and a fair few unpleasant side effects. If you want to know more about the drug, you can find out here. There is nothing pretty and light hearted about this drug, for many it is a last resort. 

Before being allowed to go on this drug I had to have blood tests to check my liver, fat levels in my blood and various other things. Plus a negative pregnancy test, because if you get pregnant on this drug it is extremely dangerous for the baby. Also every month before you get given the net month of tablets you need to have a blood test and a negative pregnancy test. 

Now on to my first actual month of being on the drug. Everyone who takes this tablet reacts completely different so my story will possibly be totally different to another. 

I was started off on 20mg of the drug which is the lowest dose to ease my skin in because if I went in on 60mg the side effects would be severe. 

My first side effect was my lips became very dry and tight, so using Blistex was a must, reapplying it very frequently. Then I noticed my body was dry, I had been recommended Cetaphil body moisturiser from a friend and it has been a life saver! My skin became very flakey in patches over the acne and dry in other areas. The next was my eyes became dry, but not anything some eyedrops in the morning couldn't sort out. I had noticed that my hair didn't need washing as frequently but that wasn't until towards the end of month 1. In terms of my acne it had gotten worse, especially very cystic and under the skin spots which would never come to a head and every morning I'd wake up with a few whiteheads but nothing I wasn't used to already. Month 1 was fairly easy, although I did suffer from quite a few side effects they weren't unbearable.

Overall month 1 wasn't a disaster and I went in to month 2 content as I knew my acne wasn't going to be cured over night and it had to get much worse before it even started to get better. 

I'm now just over a week in to month 2, that review will be up in the next few weeks where it gets a bit more interesting. 

Come back next week for another instalment of something skin/beauty related. 

Goodbye, Adios, Au Revoir.