Post Accutane

So I suck at updates but I've been off of Accutane for about 3 months now and I've had maybe 2 super small, not noticeable at all, teeny tiny spots. 

Face:  No break outs, not super dry or oily. I'd say I have normal skin now (!!!!!!!) My derm put me on adapalene to use like every 2 days and I hardly use it that much. I did get scarring, not divots or anything just red and dark spots. So I'm using Derma-e scar gel, No7 protect and perfect and Sunday Riley Good Genes. I haven't used them enough to tell a difference yet though.

Skin: Less moisture than I used to have but the eczema is gone. No body acne either. I can wax again too with no issues-eyebrows, underarms, bikini, legs.

Hair: Accutane killed my hair. I had to get about 2 inches cut off because of it being so dry and heat damaging it more. My hair is way past my shoulder blades so it wasn't really noticeable. So if you curl your hair a lot like I do get a good heat protectant, do weekly deep conditioning treatments and I soaked my end in moroccan oil at nights after the damage was cut off. I have to wash it every other day now and while I loved going days without having to re-style my hair, it looks and feels much healthier now!

Pain: My back pain and stiffness stuck around for a about a month after treatment. The pain was really bad in the last month but it was worth it. My yoga game is no where near where it used to be but it helped so much for stiffness throughout treatment

So here it is-the make up free, I woke up like this, #flawless selfie. Thank you Accutane!!

Absorica Updates

So I haven't updated as frequently and I'm sorry :( But I'm not sure if anyone reads this either

But here's the last 3 photo sets I've taken.

 Day 58: Minor breakouts and some major red spots. I was hoping these were spots but nope hyper pigmentation or scarring. Derm said there's no way to know yet.

Day 68: Clear day! I still have the red spots but no face acne! Still getting minor breakouts on my back. Derm says it could just be because it's freaking hot and it doesn't look like the acne I had before. She said I could spot treat my back with Benzoyl Peroxide. 

Day 84: Still clear and my scarring or red spots are less noticeable, I had 2 small spots come up right before my period and that was it. Right now my face still looks like this.

My side effects have kicked in now. While my face is still not super dry, my arms are. I'm on a corticosteroid for the eczema patches now and it's making it feel much better. Also I can get really bad tailbone pain now that can make my lower back, hips and thighs hurt very much. The old solution is to lower my dosage but I only have 2 months left at 60 mg and I can tough it out. It's not too terrible and massages help. Oh! and ingrown toenails are a thing on accutane, go figure. One seems better now and the other just hurts randomly. gross. Looking forward to this side effect going away most of all.  I'm VERY happy with the way things are going though.   

Absorica Day 44 and 50

Day 44: I had 2 clusters of spots come up and boy did they hurt. Along with taking forever to go away they took forever to heal when I started picking-bleh.

Day 50: I'm very happy with the results I've gotten so far. I thought I had stopped progressing but looking back at the older photos I see how far my skin has really come. Also some of the redness is fading now! I think it's easy to forget how bad it once was once you start to see progress :)

This is the week before my period and this is normally when I break out badly, I'm really hoping accutane beats the stupid hormones and lets my face continue to heal.

Absorica Day 30 and 35

 This is at the end of Month 1 when I started to really see some improvement. It was also the last day of taking only 30 Mg a month.

 This is the first week into my second month kinda. Well day 35. I've been bumped up to 60 Mg a day now and I'm going through a smaller initial breakout again. I'm really hoping this is the last big breakout so I'm staying happy and not getting to down about it.

 I will say that I was afraid of what would happen if something emotionally big happened while I was on accutane. Monday my step-grandmother passed away. And while I will not say we were close, she's the mother of the man I called Dad who passed away in 2008. I feel like I'm loosing another piece of him all over again. Monday when I found out I felt very weird. I told my husband I felt off and to kinda keep check on how I was feeling just in case. Tuesday morning he forgot to do something and I called and yelled at him and was pretty angry. Today I am fine and I feel completely normal again but it is a good idea to have someone check in with you and mentally asses how you're doing.

Absorica Day 22

My chin is revolting and a lot of other little pimples are popping up. My chin is finally starting to heal though so I feel better about it. My hair is still doing pretty great. My lips hurt like crazy though. It's gotten better since like last Thursday or so but geeze! I have all of this now: aquaphor, Dr. Dan’s, Blistex medicated balm, Blistex medicated ointment (this kinda burns), Blistex cold & allergy (I found it in my makeup bag lol), Rosebud salve, Bag Balm (this stinks but I kinda like it), Vaseline Lip Therapy, Carmex (OW holy hell this hurt!), Olive lips, Chapstick 8 hour moisture, just plain neosporin and triple antibiotic ointment. I'm a wee bit desperate. I will say that Dr Dan's and aquaphor are still the best combo but they work best together for me.

Oh and I switched from using cetaphil to wash my face to using Innisfree Green Tea Cleansing Oil. I washed my face and it did NOT feel tight right after I dried it off. It was amazing and I'm in love. Oil cleansing is the way to go on accutane for sure! Anyway enough of my rambling here are my updated photos.

Absorica Day 15

     Hello initial breakout! feel free to leave my face any time now. I think breaking out around your nose and mouth are the worst places and that's exactly where I'm so so broke out right now. I woke up this morning with a huge under the skin cyst that's just a hard knot on my chin. I can't even see it just feel it. Also-swelling. Oh em gee this morning was the first time I woke up swollen and it is not pretty. You can see that in the pictures:( 
   
    The corners of my mouth can't get enough moisture even with cortibalm and aquaphor and are cracked right now and my lips look like they want to peel. I've went from washing my hair every day to every other day now and it's still a bit itchy and flaky. I'm using a keratin shampoo and conditioner along with Moroccan oil. I'd never used the oil on my scalp before but i did today and it seems to be helping.

   My eyes have gotten pretty dry too. I wear my contacts every other day now to give them a bit of a break. Eye drops and eye gel drops help a lot at night. But anyway here's my progress photos. Yikes.

Absorica Day 9

     So today I am on Day 9 of my treatment and I'm pretty impressed with the improvements. I had a few break outs pop up on my cheeks, one cyst on my chin and one really aggravating on the small part of the bottom of my nostril. The ones on my cheeks were gone in about 3 days. Yes I popped them when they got a white head and I've had no scarring. The cyst on my chin came up Saturday night and by Sunday night I was able to extract it which never happens with a cyst. I've got a little bump left there now but it's most healed. Yesterday I could feel a painful one coming up just by my upper lip :( Not as painful today though.

     I've noticed around 3 pm I'll start to get dry around my break outs and my face will feel a little itchy. I have a rose water and aloe spray I'll use and it helps a little. If it's a really dry area like my chin I'll tap aquaphor on in it and it feels much better. After I take off my makeup and wash my face though-holy moly is my face dry. I'm taking a huge dollop of cerave and 3 or 4 drops of jojoba oil and moisturizing with that. I usually re-apply cerave at night before I go to bed. I'm showering at night now so I don't have to wash my face in the morning, it's just too dry after that. The deep moisturizing from the night before leaves my skin perfect in the morning.

   Right now I'm not having to use my dermablend just Tarte's tinted moisturizer. I'm so happy about this, it's been so long since I didn't need major coverage. 

   My hands are usually a bit dry so I haven't noticed any differences there but oh my goodness my feet are crazy dry-but soft at the same time? so weird. I've started putting aquaphor on them at night under socks and they're doing much better.

  The sun sensitivity is no joke. Saturday around 10:30/11 I went out and washed my car in partial shade and full sunlight. No sunscreen. Ha I was out for 30-45 minutes and my face was pink when I came back in. I had an outdoor wedding later that day to attend and used SPF 70 on all exposed skin and had no issues. At said wedding I learned why alcohol and this don't mix. I took my pill when I got home around 12. I had one beer at 6:30 pm, another at 8 pm and lots of water. I felt perfectly fine but the next day when I woke up I had all the yuck feelings of a hangover for about 2 hours but I was never drunk. So I do believe my love of beer will be taking the back burner for the next 6 months. Good bye dos xx I love and miss you.

  Now for some update pictures. I took these last night after taking off my makeup and I'm pretty happy with the way things are progressing.

Left side

Front

Right Side

Absorica Day 1

      So yesterday I picked up my prescription after arguing forever with my pharmacy that they screwed up. Which they did. They tried to give me an accutane generic first but that's not what my derm prescribed. Then they had to order it but it would be in the next day. Well when they ordered it they alerted iPlege that they'd already given me the pills. So next day comes around and they say my derm didn't do her part so I can't have my pills. Le sigh! So my sister works at CVS and went to the pharmacy to make them call iPledge and say they hadn't actually given me my pills. Then I could pick them up. Very aggravating day.

     Anyway my derm decided to put me on 30mg of Absorica after asking about my diet. Accutane works best when taken with high fat-well I only intake about 20 grams of fat total a day and she said it would need to be closer to 50 grams for it to work best but with Absorica it doesn't matter. I'll be on 30 mg a day for the first month then 60 mg a day for months 2-6. For reference I'm 5'6 and 123 lbs. I think she said I need 8000ish mg total over my entire course. So I went and picked up these. 

    I get it, Don't get pregnant. Loud and clear. I've been crazily researching moisturizers and lip balms to try and find the best possible one to deal with the dryness that I don't have yet. But I want to be prepared. I've always had oily skin and lack of moisture isn't something I'm familiar with.

      But really what would I do without amazon? Right now I'm mixing the CeraVe and jojoba oil for a night time moisturizer. Usually by morning I just have to rinse my face and enough is left behind that I don't have to apply anything under my make up. I am using the Embroyolisse on my current acne spots that are getting kinda dry and oily at the same time. Maybe it's working already on day 1? not sure. I've heard people swear by Dr. Dan's CortiBalm so I've been using it before I go to bed and during the day a few times. Not a fan of the smell but at least it doesn't taste that way. 

   So here are my Day 1 baseline pictures. I hate to say it but I'm not that broke out right now. This past month I've stopped using my aczone, tazorac and oracea. Go figure I started to clear, granted I still get acne but not as much as I was getting.

                            

                                 

     Please excuse the after shower selfie, I can only accomplish so much at 5:30 in the morning. Proof that I don't always look this horrible :) Ah the power of Dermablend and Mac.

     I'm trying to be very positive, I am worried about what I'm putting in my body but I hate acne more and I hated what I was putting on my skin before. I'm also tired of being embarrassed by something I can't control so I'm hoping putting weekly progress photos will help me accept myself a bit more. So bring on the dry skin! 

Starting My Accutane Journey

        So acne sucks. It started in my teens as normal acne. like a bump here and there-whatever right. My mom agreed that birth control was probably the best route to take since it was all hormonal anyway. And it worked. 

       I started seeing a dermatologist I think around 20. He prescribed Retin-A and Aczone. After 3 years, I STILL had acne, not horrible but I always had at least one bump. I thought this was normal. The bumps, the hyperpigmintation, the scars. The most he did to adjust my medication was change me to a higher Retin A . And try one round of antibiotics that did nothing.

       In December 2013 I decided I was done with birth control. Not because I wanted a baby but I had noticed that in the past 2 years I had put on 10 pounds that I could not lose. My diet got healthier in those 2 years and still the weight came. At this point I was also engaged and BC kills some happy love hormones so all signs were pointing to "Stop BC". By mid April 2014 I went from 134 to 120 (still a healthy BMI for someone 5'6) I was not working out or eating any differently. Gee thanks BC. My acne came back with a vengeance. In April I went to the same dermatologist group but to a different doctor. This time a woman who understood hormones better than my previous male doctor (and honestly wasn't such an ass). She explained that my acne was some hormonal-around and under my jaw line- and some was the line between acne and rosacea. The hormonal acne was forming into cystic acne on my chin and cheeks and I had some pretty bad red/purple marks. She changed my Retin A to Tazorac (stronger retinol) and added Oracea for the rosacea. That worked a bit. It did start to dry me out but after a month I went back to oily skin. I dealt with it for a while. Then In December 2014 I took off work 2 weeks for Christmas. So no make up around the house and pretty chill time. I had the worst breakout of my life. My skin was a mess. I ended up going to ulta and buying Dermablend just so I could return to work. Since then bad breakouts are my norm. My face, my chest and my back. In February I made another derm appointment and she said my acne was now moderate to severe on my face and severe on my chest and back. She prescribed 100mg of Minocycline for a month and said if it didn't work we'd start talking about Accutane. 

      In that month I done a lot of research on Accutane.  At the end of my month the antibiotic had barely touched the acne. I made an emergency appointment with my derm and she asked if I wanted Accutane. I said yes. She went on to explain the side effects I already knew and the do not get pregnant speech. I asked how many people she had prescribed this to (usually has about 5 patients on it at all times), how many people she's taken off due to bad side effects (3. 1 patient's brother died and they requested to continue treatment later at risk of depression. 1 patient's husband passed away and she was taken off due to possible depression. 1 teenager's significant other said they were being an ass and the mother asked they be taken off). The nurse told me how people who once would keep their head down would look them in the eye and talk after 4 months of treatment, the girls stopped using their hair to cover the sides of their face and their shoulders (my hair is over 2' I'm super guilty of this). Then my derm told me when she was my age she was on it. Her skin is pretty awesome looking. She explained she was dry during treatment but that was about it.

    I took my first pregnancy test that day and signed all my paperwork. I have my card for ipledge now and I do my blood work on April 23rd. My appointment is on April 27th and I'm so excited. I know its a really strong drug, I get it. I know that a lot of people are against this treatment including some of my family members. I know the risks are a little high and it's a pain in the ass 6 months. But what I know even more is I hate waking up and seeing what other bumps popped up over night. I hate everyone's advice on what I'm doing wrong regarding my skin. I hate putting on makeup in the morning and having to re do it at lunch because my oily dehydrated skin has made it a semi flaky, cakey oil slick.I am tired of all the money I have wasted on make up, face washes and treatments. I am tired of being 24 and having acne.

So I'm putting it out there. These are my before pictures.

 This isn't the worst it's been, it's just a normal breakout now. It's a normal I refuse to accept.