Has anyone ever taken the acne drug Accutane (isotretinoin)?

just dont get somebody pregnant when you are on it. a very teratogenic drug

 

I think this only applies to females taking the drug. I believe men can be on it and safely do the hanky panky.

 

dont remember the mg, and yes you are correct.

 

I had what you're describing for a while. Mild, persistent. Tried a lot of stuff that just seemed to make things worse.

Check out www.acne.org . I got it down to basics--used the mildest of mild soaps, washed 2x a day only, and used a low concentration of the bp gel on there. One of the keys being the low concentration...because a lot of the OTC stuff being sold is a higher conc. that ends up irritating while helping.

Good luck. That community is way more helpful than this one for the specific stuff you're asking about. Just because of "expertise"

 

I took it in high school years ago. It gets a lot worse, then a lot better. No side effects for me other than dry lips. I never had too bad of acne, but seemed like every week I was getting at least 1 new pimple that bugged me.

 

Definitely don't take it pregnant. My wife used to do defense work for that company and that drug can do some crazy stuff

 

I personally have never taken Accutane, but a couple of friends who had huge acne problems took it and the acne completly went away. They where FULL of acne.
Only side effect I know of was that they couldn't drink (alcohol) when they where on it.

 

Took it high school I think. About 16 years back. Had moderate acne and it completely cleaned it up.

Side effects for me - Effed up dry and bloody lips like you wouldnt believe. Think I went from 80mg to 40 to 20 to 10 and still had the same side effects.

Itchy back too if I remember correctly.

 

I took it in high school as well. Looking back, my acne wasn't even really that bad. It was pretty standard acne for someone who was 13 or 14 years old. I just remember that I had been prescribed at least one other pill medication and a couple of topical creams that had little or no effect, so that was the logical next step.

It cleared my acne up pretty quickly. The only real downside for me personally was that it made my skin incredibly dry. I was carrying a travel size bottle of lotion in my backpack so that I didn't have peeling skin at school. Also, because it is such a powerful drug, my doctor had me take a blood test once a month for liver function. That wasn't a lot of fun. I'm not sure if that's standard procedure or if my doctor was just being overly cautious.

 

I remember pictures (drawings of a baby with an alien head) on the inside of the box of accutane.

 

I was 35 when I went on Claravis. I tried a bunch of OTC stuff and other prescription stuff before it, so Claravis was the last resort. I did one course of Claravis for a few months and it helped dramatically. I had very dry skin (I was shedding skin everywhere!) and chapped lips so I used a daily sunscreen/moisturizer and of course Chap Stick. I did not have joint pain or any other side effects.

After I went off of Claravis, my skin was much clearer, and a lot of people noticed immediately. I still get acne from time to time. It's at a low enough level where I don't worry about it any more though.

However, one of my co-workers did have joint pain and he had to stop. There's nothing else for him to try so he still suffers from bad acne.

 

I took Clavaris as well. For about 6 months.

I didn't have bad acne, but I had cystic acne. I had been on antibiotics for years, that really weren't all that effective. It wasn't healthy to stay on them, so it was kind of like a last resort thing to try Clavaris.

I've been very pleased with the results. Been off accutane for about 6 months, and no returning cystic acne.

I started off with 40mg, went to 60, then to 80 for the last few months. They stopped me right when I reached the lower recommended total dosage because my white blood cell count was dropping- a side effect seen in healthy weight Caucasians they said. Bacne didn't go away for me until near the end. That's where the thickest skin is, so don't get discouraged if that takes forever to go away.

I loved the results of the non oily skin, shrinking pores, non oily hair so much that I wished I could have been on it longer. My skin was flawless. I did hate the chapped lip thing. It was like "great, people aren't staring at my acne now but they're now staring at my cracking lips." Buy Aquafor to put on your lips! Having to get pregnancy tests/bloodwork done every month as well as dermatologist appointments was kind of a pain, but I'm so glad I did accutane. I took it over the summer, & since you're supposed to avoid sun exposure, I was soo pale. That was probably my least favorite side effect! Ha! Also, another side effect I had was dry eyes. I was constantly having to put eye drops in and replace contacts near the end of my round.

 

OP - have you tried a back-to-back cycle of antibiotics in conjunction with a mild treatment like the regimen recommendation from acne.org a few posts up? Throw some vitamins in too, anti-inflammatories for good measure. Stick it to it for 8 weeks. Then see where you're at.

 

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I just finished taking accutane. It worked perfectly for me, but several of my friends who took the drug were forced to do another cycle because their acne returned.

I never experienced any serious side effects, asides from chapped lips, which are a pain in the a**.

 

Oh, and I never really had serious acne. Like you, just mild and stubborn. If you really can't stand living with it anymore, I highly recommend you talk to your dermatologist about taking it.