One of my Best Decisions Ever - Rockville, MD

After years of extremely oily skin and mild acne, I began to get moderately frequent cystic acne. These legions would resemble a marble under the skin and would press on the underlying muscle and nerve tissue so that it would hurt to use the surrounding area (for instance, if there were one on my chin, it hurt to eat, smile, or talk). They were quite painful and slow to heal, often taking at least a month to resolve. I finally turned to accutane and saw results almost immediately. I had one cyst lurking when I started treatment and it resolved the next day. One year later, I have not had another cyst since. Accutane basically makes your skin thin out and renew itself really fast, so zits just have nowhere to set up shop in your face. In the first few weeks, everything just falls out. This can get rather itchy, but it passes fairly quickly. Also, all the oil sticks to itself instead of your skin, so a light fingernail scratch resolves most issues. I honestly had about 5 teensy zits during the entire course of treatment and they normally resolved overnight. As treatment progressed, other fun surprises emerged. My oily scalp also improved, and my sinuses dried up. Unfortunately, this also sometimes caused nosebleeds, but mostly I just had very dry/bloody boogers (don't try to blow them out - they're sharp and well attached to nose hair! Sorry, you'll just have to pick em' out.) At least my giant scab of a sinus cavity stopped my allergies! Sadly, my nose returned to normal once treatment stopped. I didn't have too much trouble with lip dryness, but occasionally the corners of my lips would crack if I had to open wide (I also have Invisalign, so sometimes I couldn't avoid it). Once they crack, they don't really heal. I would skip a day of meds to let them heal when this happened and that worked well. Another artifact of the Invisalign was that I often took my meds just before bedtime with a glass of water. Bad idea! I managed to almost give myself an ulcer. Take them with a meal (or even better, a glass of whole milk after a meal - it needs fat to absorb and therefore work. Without fat, it just wreaks havoc on your stomach). I also sunburned very, very quickly (my treatment was June-Dec.) but I am also really pale and sunburned easily already. Other side effects included some hair loss (not noticeable in the mirror, but more than usual comes out in the shower). This goes for all hair; body hair became extremely easy to remove. I also took on a beautiful flush while on the meds. I had calm alabaster skin in place of my normally blotchy skin, a soft rose color in my cheeks, and a deeper pink in my lips. It was a bit more than my normal coloration, but quite pretty. Some studies cast suspicion on accutane for causing suicidal thoughts, but my experience was quite the opposite. It was a joy to look in the mirror and actually like what I saw and to enjoy the feeling of calm, cool skin instead of the always painful and irritated version to which I was accustomed. 6 months post-treatment, my super-oily skin has left for good along with the huge zits. I occasionally get very small zits which do not hurt or disfigure and an over the counter cream is all I need (I like fix by Zirh). Before, I was using any and every product I could get my hands on including some very strong acids. Life no longer revolves around my skin, and I couldn't be happier. Financials: 21 yr old 100 lb female on 40 mg/day for 6 months. I have United Healthcare Choice Plus, so only paid $20/doctor visit (1/month for 6 months on the meds, plus one month before and after. *note - women can't get the meds until 1 month after the first visit due to pregnancy concerns*) plus $25 per monthly supply of meds. I had to have monthly blood work, which would have been expensive without insurance (I think this ran about $1000).