I saw the doctor more than a few times for acne and acne scarring. The wait time has never been super long and I am satisfied with the time he spent discussing my problems. My experience with him and his employees have always been great.
I was seen by my dermatologist at the end of March and he prescribed accutane for my acne. However, being a female, I was required to have to negative pregnancy tests before I could start, which set me back about a month-extremely frustrating! But I understand why it had to be done. Anyway, I officially started my accutane a week ago (4/24/16). I haven't experienced my initial breakout yet, and maybe I won't at all! The dry lips have already begun, and it is awful :( It is constant, and there is nothing that heals them. I always have chapstick/vaseline on but that only temporarily relieves it. It's not your normal chapped lip feeling. It feels like I have lip stain on, or matte lipstick. Its like there's a thin film on my lips that is drying them out that I can't get off. It drives me crazy. I'm constantly biting the dead skin off of my lips (because of the feeling that there is a film on my lips) but it doesn't do any good. Anyway, today is the first day I've noticed the skin on my face beginning to peel. There has been a slight burning feeling on parts of my face that have always been sensitive like my chin, my upper lip and around the corners of my nose for about three days, but today the skin finally began to peel. Other than those two side effects, I haven't experienced anything else. No mood changes yet which is exciting. I will post pictures of my skin before accutane on this review, and on the next I'll add some progress shots! Right now I'm very hopeful. Updated on 17 Jun 2016: Since I started accutane almost 2 months ago (wow!), my acne has actually cleared up almost completely. My skin is constantly dry, and my chin is always peelings but to me those are minor side effects. I hardly get pimples now, but I do have lots of scarring left from my previous breakouts. I know I am not supposed to but... I have popped some pimples in the past! I know. I'm awful. What's interesting to me is that they are so much harder to pop on accutane... I can't explain it. But I used to consider myself some what of a pimple-popping master and now it's really hard to do it without severely irritating the surrounding skin (probably a sign to stop popping my pimples). I never really went through an initial breakout. My skin never got worse than it did, as soon as I started the medicine I started seeing results and they haven't stopped. I'm still taking my initial 40mg a day, once a day. The lips are still terrible. What's worse is that the sides of my mouth keep splitting open regardless of how much moisturizer/chapstick I have on. Ugh! Oh well, I know it'll be worth it. It already is. My face isn't completely clear, but do you know how great it is to put on makeup without it looking bumpy?? So great. So great. Updated on 15 Aug 2016: It's been about two months since I updated, so I'll just give a brief summary of whats been going on cause nothing has really changed. My lips have been awful, whats new. They're constantly dry but its manageable. The skin on my chin and around my nose is so dry i think it literally cracks in the morning, regardless of me putting on moisturizer before bed. The good thing is the skin on my chin has always been uneven and bumpy, and I'm not sure why. But, with accutane, it peeled so much that it seems like I have a brand new chin! Something i never thought id see. I hope it stays like this. As of today, my skin has stopped peeling. When I say skin I just mean my two problem areas (chin and upper lip/nose area) so I guess its not that bad. My skin is regenerating and improves more and more everyday. Everyone is constantly telling me "oh my gosh your skin looks so good!" and i don't even realize how much its improved until i look at pictures that I took literally a few weeks before. It is crazy. I'm sorry for treating this like a diary instead of an informative review. I will (somewhat) switch to that part. Before, i was taking a brand called absorbica. It was a huge, 40 mg pill that I took once a day. I think it worked fine. In July my doctor switched me to a brand called Claravis because I switched pharmacies. I now take one 20mg pill three times a day. In the beginning, i forgot to take my third pill quite often, but it didn't seem to have any effect on me. I haven't noticed much of a difference with the upped dosage. One thing that has gotten a little annoying is how dry my nose is! Nose bleeds are apparently common with accutane but I've never had one in my life and still haven't. However, my nose is constantly caked with blood on the inside, and (tmi alert) if a booger comes out it peels the skin off of my inner nostril and burns like crazy! Not the worst side effect but still uncomfortable. My eyes are also pretty dry but I have worn contacts since 5th grade so I'm used to that. I did see my optometrist to get my prescription renewed and he said I have little white dots on my waterline (ok, he used the actual medical term but I forgot it) which I've never had, so I'm going to attribute it to the accutane and the dryness I've experienced. Other than that, so far so good. Something I want to mention for others who may read my review in the future or for people who were constantly worrying about tanning and drinking on accutane: I know you're not supposed to have a lot of sun exposure on accutane, but it's summertime! What's a girl to do?! Stay pale?! I've tanned a couple of days during this summer, each time about 3-4 hours laying out by the pool. I did use sunscreen. I got a really nice tan. No adverse affects, appointments went fine. Also went hiking/swimming at a waterfall one day from about 10 am-5pm. I DID get burnt that day. I used sunscreen but I was literally in the sun all day. Afterward I had a nice-ER tan. I'm not saying you should do it, and everyone is different but you don't have to freak out like I did. :) About the drinking: I'm in college, its summertime, friends birthdays are coming up, sometimes it happens! The first time I had a marg while on accutane I was so nervous, looking up every possible review online and worrying myself sick. I drank it and ended up being fine. Over time I became less worried and drank a little (lot) more. I will say, 1. you do get drunk quicker and 2. it feels different. i can't really explain but it does. Again I'm not condoning this or advising anyone to do it, but you will be okay if you decide to do it every so often. Sorry this post was so long! hope this helped!! Updated on 28 Sep 2016: So just a brief update: I moved to Los Angeles this September and had already been on accutane for about 5 months, so I decided not to do my last month. I figured it would be more of a hassle to find a doctor, get seen, go through insurance and all that just for one month's supply. I'm satisfied with my skin so I'm done with accutane. My only worry is that it will come back, but only time will tell. I have a few little marks left over from before, some indentions but no acne. I haven't had acne in awhile and that's a blessing. The picture is what my face looks like as of today. Hope this helped! Updated on 13 Sep 2017: My acne has seemed to come back full force. I'm not sure if I can attribute that to me not taking my last month...But it's like I never went on Accutane at all. This summer I was able to enjoy the clearest skin of my life. I loved going to the beach and having a natural glowy look. My acne scars were finally starting to fade away, I had near perfect skin for about 2months. In July, I noticed little whiteheads coming back. I bought salicylic acid pads and it kept them at bay. Then In August i was getting full on cystic bumps...fast forward to today, I have multiple large, painful red bumps all over my forehead and temples. Some near the corner of my eye. The hard to control under the skin cheek bumps are coming back. I feel like I barely got to enjoy my skin before this returned. I 100% want to get back on Accutane, no topical medicine has worked and I've tried everything. I'm going to see a dermatologist here as soon as I can to see if I can be perscribed another treatment. I know that my acne is not something I can control, I can't just eat right or wash my face twice a day and use creams. I feel helpless to it. I wondered if it was stress, or my eating habits, but no, it is just my skin. Hopefully I can get this resolved soon!
I just had the procedure on my face yesterday. So follow along if you want to see how it all turns out. I'll do my best to give an update every couple of days. My background: I turn 42 in a month. I'm fair skinned red head. I grew up in Corpus Christi Texas so the beach was a part of my life in my high school years and early college years. I also served in the Navy for 20 years on submarines. The good part is I got to stay out of the sun (big steel tube). However in my 20's I frequently stood an in port watch that required me to stand in the sun for 4 hours at a time. A few times in my live I got rather burned. Some beach times and some Navy watch standing times too. The wort burn I've ever had was when I was a teenager and we were on vacation in another beach town. I when for a walk for about an hour on the beach. No sunblock in the early 80's. Since about 1995 I've been very careful of my sun exposure. Sunburns have been rare after 1995. My reasoning: I want to take advantage of any preventative treatments I can, in hopes that I will avoid any brushes with skin cancer. About two years ago I did a chemical cream treatment that did improve my skin tone and addressed a few spots. It was a daily cream application for 10 days in a row. Each day got progressively worse. By the last day I didn't want to put it on. The difference between that cream treatment and the blue light treatment is that the cream appeared to be more target specific. Meaning, there were areas that got irritated instead of my whole face. The blue light has affected my whole face. My Arm Treatment: Two weeks ago I had my arms done. Basic procedure was: 1. Clean arms with alcohol 2. Rub on the chemical that does the work. 3. Sit and wait for 1 hour for it to soak in 4. Sit under a blue light lamp for about 15 minutes During the blue light exposure the skin on my arms got a little itchy and very light burning feel. I rated it a 1-2 out of 10. No big deal. The nurse told me to stay out of the sun for 48 hours because I would be very sensitive. No kidding. I wore long sleeved shirts for a few weeks (actually I normally wear long sleeved shirts to protect my arms anyway). However, I notice while driving the tops of my hands began to burn when they were in direct sunlight. So I repositioned my hands to stay out of the sun. There was never any significant prolonged burning feeling in my arms. Maybe some light sunburn feeling, but nothing serious enough to disturb my normal day-to-day routine. After about a week it began to peal like recovering from a sunburn. I did not put much lotion or cream on my arms so they pealed quite a bit. My Face Treatment: I had a totally different after treatment experience on my face. My arms; no big deal. My face......IT IS ON FIRE!!!!!! The procedure was the same as the one on my arms (see above). During the blue light exposure I felt a little itchiness and light burning but nothing significant. Again I rated it at a 1-2 out of 10. Procedure was complete at about 11:00 a.m. By 7:00 p.m. my face was becoming increasingly red and looked like I had a sunburn. It had been raining for the last two days in my town so everyone was wondering where I got the sun exposure from. I was home by 8:00 p.m. and began putting aloe on it every 30 minutes. My skin just soaked it up as fast as I could put it on. By 11:00 p.m. my face was cooking real good. I ended up sleeping the night with a cold damp cloth on my face with an ice pack on top of that. I slept o.k. other than trying to not move so the cloth would stay on. I also took Tylenol. In the morning my face felt like a lobster. It was very red, tight, sensitive, hot, etc. Basically felt like the worst sunburn I had ever experienced. I took the day off work because I could not concentrate on anything other than the paid. I would rate it at a 7-8 out of 10. At 4:00 p.m. I called my dermatologist and ask told them I was having trouble managing the pain. They had me come in and get a steroid shot. The nurse told me the shot basically reduces swelling which is what is causing the pain and redness in my face. They also gave me a hydrocortisone cream prescription. About 30 min after the shot I started to feel some relief. An hour after the shot I was home with the cream and applied it liberally (a.k.a. super thick) to my face. The attached picture is right before I put the cream on. I posted it on Facebook with the title "My dermatologist is trying to kill me." Now I'm at a pain level of about 4. So, while it is still hurting some, I can stand it now. I'll post more in a couple of days to let you know how my progress is going.
