im on my 3rd week of roaccutane, im on 115mg a day, does this sound alot to people out there? i weigh 113kg, but no i am not some huge obese freak lol im a rugby player, all muscle

i was put on this drug by my derm, for treating acne on my back, no acne elsewhere.

had no major problems apart from usual dry lips, and scalp.

my main concern is my arms, there all red and blotchy, there not spots, they dont itch and arent sore, just look horrible, suppose it looks like psoriasis or eczema, is this normal? anything i can do? or should it die down?obvioulsy this wasnt there before i started the drug. but i did have the odd spot there.

any advice welcome, im initially on 8 week course of 115mg daily, then got to go back to derm, then another 8 weeks.

cheers

I have just 1 dose of roacc left and I am really chuffed with the results :o)

For a while I was afraid that I was going to be one of those people that roacc doesn’t work for. After 4 months there was medium improvement, whereas the other diaries I was reading were reporting miraculous results. I wasn’t peeling, but I didn’t have clear skin either. I was right to get another prescription; I definitely needed these last 8 weeks. I now have better skin than I had in weeks 3 and 4 and it has been this way for about the last month.

My skin is dryer and I’ve noticed little… not quite ‘wrinkles’; more like ‘creases’. But they are preferable to spots anytime. Right now I have just one tiny spot, and for a couple of weeks I had none. I can certainly live with 1 or 2 spots once a month.

I never used to understand how people could go to bed without washing their face. By the end of the day, my face used to be so greasy and grimy that I couldn’t contemplate the thought of doing that for a second. Even at times when I’ve been a ‘little worse for wear’, I’ve always washed my face first. I don’t intend to stop doing this, but now I can understand how some people can fall asleep contentedly without cleansing.

I am very ready to stop taking roacc. My body has ached throughout my treatment. I gave up on kick-boxing because it took too much of a toil on my body. I feel like I’ve been experiencing what it could feel like to be 65yrs old: tiredness, stiff joints, random aches for no reason, and hurting eyes. I’ve gotten glasses and I never needed them before. I’m pretty certain it’s the roacc because I have an annual eye test and my prescription hasn’t changed – it’s still quite mild. However my eyes got quite dry and tired quickly when I was using computers. This was giving me headaches, despite using eye drops. I only have to wear my glasses when using computers, and they make me look smarter, so I guess it isn’t all bad :op I also had a couple of nose bleeds and, like pretty much everyone else, dry lips and rashes on my hands.

I have pits in my skin and I don’t think these will ever go. But many of the marks of previous spots have faded. I’ve darker circles under my eyes than before. I hope that once I have the roacc out my system I will start to sleep well again and they will fade.

I have 2 hopes for the future. Firstly, it would be nice if I had my body back for Christmas – one that is 31yrs old and not 65! It would be a lovely present to wake Christmas morning without the aches and pains, or feeling like I’m dragging myself everywhere. Secondly, I would like the spots to stay away so that I don’t need to take another course of roacc.

To those of you that are just starting out or a part way through a course and wondering if it’s worth it, I say ‘stick with it’. It is worth it. I feel so much more confident now.

I was very good in the beginning and I kept a weekly photo diary, but I lapsed after week 15 when photographing became ad-hoc. But I’ve done a little photo montage of all my best bits ;o)

Now to take that final dose!

Good luck everyone!

roacc-montage.jpg (866 KB)

Okay, so ive completed week 2 and now starting week 3. So far hasnt been too much of a drastic change. Bascally my ‘deep fried skin look’ is now dried up and feels kinda nice and smooth apart from the bump and lumps that have invaded :). Haven’t reached the breakout stage asyet, but i thinks the process is starting as im getting really big painful spots.

My face doesnt seem to be dry thou, just a bit flaky here and there. I dont feel the need to moisturise at all yet.

My lips are feeling dry but dont look at all dried up, but i feel the need to reapply vaseline every half hours or else i start to lick them

My scalp is so so itchy, so its time for the switch to anti-dantruff shampoo - any recomendations? is h&s any good?

Been feeling oh-so tired. I can just sleep for days and days

Still havent found the right makeup, so recommendations is highly highly apprecaited.

Thanks for reading on. I rant on a bit. Good luck to all with their course. We will all get there 

Not much to report to be honest. Time is starting to fly and taking Roac is becoming second nature. Still have dry lips but lip balm is doing the trick. I have noticed that the longer your on it side effects start to disappear. Acne wise its starting to disappear off my back. At first it was all bumpy (I think it was pushing all the blackheads etc out) now its really smooth.  I went back to the derm two weeks ago, they doubled my dose (80Mg a day) which hasn’t resulted in any breakouts. Bloods all good and feeling fine.

Had planned on posting this sooner but I had a power cut and got distracted.  So, I’m now into week 3 of my treatment and my skin hasn’t changed a whole lot.  The dry skin is bearable at the moment.  I have however noticed that i’m getting breakouts both on my face and my back (I forgot to mention that i also have acne on my back).  The spots seem to be quite big and sore.  Other than that, not a whole lot to say.  I’ve included some more pics.  If you compare them to last weeks I think you’ll agree that my skin has actually got worse, but I’m not really expecting to see any results until the 2 month period.  I’ve not used a flash this time so that you can get a better idea of the redness.

Hope you’re all getting on well

Soph xxx

DSC00216.JPG (686 KB)

DSC00217.JPG (738 KB)

DSC00218.JPG (670 KB)

DSC00221.JPG (712 KB)