The common name of the miracle drug isotretinoin (13-cis retanoic acid) that cures any and all severe acne.
My question: has anyone ever used it before/know anyone who has used it? If so, what was their experience like (side effects, etc.), how long did they have to stay on the drug, and how well did it work overall?
Backstory
It's not that I have utterly SEVERE acne, but facial/chest/back blemishes have been an issue for me for the past five years, and I'm at the point in treatment where this drug would (apparently) be the next step. I've been seeing a dermatologist off and on for the past two years, but I finally decided over winter break that I wanted to kick this bitch to the curb once and for all, so I went back to the dermatologist to finalize a "kill regimen" that I could stick to for a couple months.
Fast forward now, three months later. I'm using 4 different topical products every morning and 5 different ones (the morning four plus a specific nighttime one), and am taking 125 mg doses of minocycline (antibiotic) twice a day, and yet after 3 months of diligent work (not to mention decent care over the past 4+ years), my condition hasn't gotten any better. Sure, it's cleared up a bit from before, but it's at a point of equilibrium now. To make matters worse, my genetics essentially dictate I have bad skin, as my father had horrible acne as a teenager and still has overworking sebaceous glands at 50. My skin is so bad it's capable of producing enough excess oil within 5.5 hours to use up four oil-blotting pads.
So the answer? After doing minor research I've discovered that Accutane is usually described as the "do-all end-all" drug, the final step if all else before fails (with the preceding step usually listed as 'topical + antibiotic combination,' which, again, I'm on but doesn't work). I talked with a friend tonight who said two of her siblings used it and have never had a problem with acne since, and as I'm aware from research it also shrinks the size of your sebaceous glands, which means overly oily skin wouldn't be an issue anymore, either. Clearly, then, I REALLY want to start this drug treatment.
But there are side effects.
I'll let you guys do the research if you so care and are still interested in this topic even after trudging through my wall-of-text (sorry!), but because this drug is much more powerful than anything else usually used to treat acne, I wanted to get an understanding of the experiences others went through with it before starting treatment myself.
tl;dr: My skin sucks, Accutane's a miracle drug that will fix my problems forever, but because it's so powerful I want to get as much information from previous users as I can before starting treatment.
