Accutane: Stories

Accutane is by far the best method of removing acne, period. I don't remember what I paid exactly but it was covered by my drug plan. I believe $150 a month for 6 months and I did 2 cycles.

I first started with going to the doctors who prescribed tetracycline which is useless. I took this for awhile with no change. I then went to a dermatologist who started me with a different type of tetra, and these creams that you put on during the day and at night, can't remmeber what they're called. They just dried my skin and had no effect. I never had bad bad acne but it was cycstic so more like red bumps.

This was about 10 years ago or so when I was 16-17. After talking to someone in school who said they were on Accutane, I told my dermatologist I wanted to do this. He put me on a 40mg dose I believe, taking 2 pills one day and 1 pill the next. I had to go in once a month for a checkup, and to do bloodwork to make sure everything was okay. Was a bit of a pain since he was 45 minutes away but it was a day off school.

The only side effects I had were crazy dry skin. My face would be so dry and lips chapped so bad I never left home without cream and chapstick. I did the 6 month cycle and it worked great. After about 6 months I started getting acne a bit again, so I went back and did a second cycle and was told this is usually required. First cycle was in the winter second in the summer. I think summer is worse, since you need to avoid sun and so on.

Either way, after the last cycle, my skin was perfectly clear and I haven't had acne since. I'll get the odd pimple once in awhile, but using Oxy or store bought products gets rid of them in a day, where as before these had 0 effect on me.

I can't recommend accutane enough. It gets a bad rap from the side effects, but my doctor told me if even one person gets a side effect, they have to list it as one. The benefits definitely outweigh the side effects and I would suggest anyone tries Accutane. I paid $1800 or so for the 2 cycles, but it was worth it even if it was $18,000, amazing stuff!