Many months ago I spoke about being on meds for a while. I finished the course of the medication last month, and I just had my last follow-up with the doctor this morning. I said that I’d write about it back in September, but I never did get around to it. Now that I’ve reached an end, I figure I might as well talk about it now, so please bear with me.
The medication? Accutane.
Wow…it’s going to take a little bit of courage just to write about all of this. I was thinking of doing a weekly blog feature on the topic like some other people out there, but I didn’t want to clutter the blog with all of this talk. Instead, I’m going to make this a one-time deal outlining my history and my experiences with the drug.
Really early on–earlier than almost all of my peers–I started having issues with acne. I’m not sure what was going on, but I had it pretty bad back then. Grade 7 and 8 were particularly tough because kids can be such ass holes at that age. No lie. I was beyond having a few shallow breakouts–these were some pretty deep lesions. It wasn’t pretty at all. So, via the dermatologist, I went through several types of drugs, each with varying success. None of them really got rid of everything outright though. Eventually the doc recommended I attempt going through a round of Accutane. I read the literature and knew that it would be rough sailing, however I figured that the end result would be worth whatever hardships I went through, so I did it.
During that round, I experienced a lot of dryness and occasional nosebleeds. I also found that psychologically I was more prone to ugly mood swings. When you’re going through your teens, the mood swings certainly feel amplified many times over, you know? Well, I finished my five months of treatment with success. I was glad to be off the darn drug, but also happy that the activity had been quelled. Thing is…I don’t think it was really ever gone.
Through late high school I think it wasn’t all that bad but I still had breakouts now and then. Going into university, I had an increase in stress levels, and I think that really triggered things once more. In my first few months, I had some bad flare ups but did as much as I could to ease it all. Still, I had the deep nodulocystic type of acne which no amount of topical drugstore stuff could attack properly. It was a daily battle, but since I was just so preoccupied with my studies, all I did was just keep it all at bay.
So alright, that leads to the past year. Early last year, I decided to do something about my acne once more so I got a referral to a new dermatologist. We spoke about different treatments and he mentioned Accutane. I remember all of the insanity I went through back then so I was hesitant. I insisted that I wanted to try antibiotics like tetracycline first, just to see if they’d work. Well, after a few months on them, I didn’t see the results that I wanted. Eventually I decided to just man up and go for the heavy duty stuff again. I knew what it was like. I was ready to go to battle!
In the first few weeks I knew it’d get worse before it got better. My doc had me on a lower dose for a week or two to ease me into things. Because he did that, it wasn’t all that bad to start off. When I was finally told to take the full dose (in my case 80 mg/day) that’s when I started noticing things getting a little bit worse. I developed some bad ones that I thought wouldn’t really amount to anything. Over time though, they surfaced. It almost seemed sudden to me. Like, one day my face just started hurting from these few break outs. I didn’t think it would get to this point, but I felt like I just wanted to stay home from work so that I wouldn’t have to face my colleagues or people on the train. It was rough going. Eventually, though those big ones faded.
During this course of the medication I experienced the same dryness that I had during my first round. I was prepared though. I moisturized daily, once in the morning with something light, and once before bed with something a bit more heavy duty. I found that I really had to this because if I forgot to moisturize I would end up going to work with a peeling face. I was in no mood to be horribly self-conscious all day. I also got into the habit of using a good lip balm. I recall being in Arizona without my lip balm and that was a horrible experience. My lips became wholly chapped and scaly. My lips hurt like heck! I found that lip balms that had a cooling effect due to mint extracts really helped. Aside from dryness, I also experienced several nosebleeds. It was horrible! I’d just be going about my day then all of a sudden I’d be in a panic trying to plug up without drawing so much attention to myself. Imagine my horror when my nose started bleeding in a change room in Arizona while I’m wearing clothes I hadn’t purchased yet. Ooh, that wasn’t a fun experience.
Well, it wasn’t really until the fourth month that I noticed things really starting to clear up. The redness was still there, but I wasn’t getting any of those big ones brewing beneath the surface. At the end of five, I spoke with my dermatologist and we agreed that I could probably do with another month of pills just at half-dose. So yeah, my six months ended in mid-March. And now, here I am well into April without any breakouts to deal with. It’s awesome. It almost feel strange thinking that I don’t have to worry about something brewing, you know? Now, my face is still kind of red from previous breakouts, but that’s something that will fade with time. I feel good.
So there you go. That’s been my experience with the drug. As you can see, taking it is no guarantee that you’ll be rid of acne forever. However, the fact that I can be free, even if temporarily, makes it worth it. I think this time it’ll hold–at least I really hope it will.
Freedom.
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