Adult Acne – My experience on Roaccutane
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Acne – was never really a term I was familiar with until my mid-20s. To be honest, like most things us humans do, I had taken my relatively good skin health for granted. As a teen I had the occasional boil that would appear (always in the the same place), but that was usually down to leaving my makeup on over night and not washing my face regularly! Yes, I look back on it now and think, wow! how disgusting. Fast forward 2 decades and here I am double cleansing morning and night!
When did I start to notice a change in my skin?
It wasn’t until my mid 20s that I started to see my skin gradually decline, with spots appearing more often. Ironically, as I became healthier: working out 3-5 times a week; drinking more water (I used to only drink Robinsons Squash and fizzy drinks!) and eating nutritiously, did I see my regular spots start to turn into cystic acne. Strange right! But its also important to add, that around this time, there was lots other things that could have contributed to my bad skin, as whilst I was working out more, I was also working long hours at work (70+ hours), limited sleep, smoking more and had started drinking coffee.
Hereon here, lies the problem, there could be so many contributing factors, making it hard to understand, why your skin has changed. I spent many hours deliberating over what is different, what I can change as well as lots of research, to hopefully counterbalance how my skin had changed.
My own skincare remedies
As my skin started to progressively get worse, after extensive reading on the internet, I tried changing a number of things in my life, in the hope that this would help me to get better skin.
Swapping Cows Milk for Almond Milk
As I had started drinking coffee (lattes to be precise), I noticed that I had upped the amount of milk that I was consuming daily. In addition, I was also eating healthy and trying to build up my muscle in my body, so I was also consuming a high number of egg whites and drinking Protein shakes made with milk. After reading online, how many people’s skin had got better after cutting milk out of their diet. I tried this for 6 months, swapping Cow’s milk for Almond milk (something I never grew to love!). Unfortunately, I didn’t really see a positive impact from cutting cows milk out, I thought I did at first – but think this was more me wanting to see that there was an improvement rather than there actually being one.
Eat Less Sugar
After the lack of success with swapping cows milk, I then decided to decrease the amount of sugar I was consuming, swapping sweets for fruit, at night and during my work breaks. Needless to say, this too was not very successful and for obvious reasons didn’t last very long!
Drink more water
Anyone who knew me then, knew that I never would drink ‘plain water’ as I felt like it had no taste at all. I was raised on orange squash and fizzy drinks as a treat – the thought of drinking water plain, honestly, never entered my mind as an option. Bizarre I know! So in order to start drinking more water – as I had read so much, how vital this is for your body and not only for your skin – I started drinking Flavoured Sparkling Water (it tasted a bit like a fizzy drink!) and then started to gradually wean out the flavouring, before consuming ‘plain’ sparkling water and then occasionally drinking just still water.
Skin Care
Whilst making changes to my diet, I was regularly washing my face, morning and night. However, after none of the changes above made a difference to my skin, I started reading and reading and reading all the reviews for the many thousands of skin care products out there! I decided to use the full ‘LaRoche Posay’ skincare regime, cleansing, toning and moisturising, without failure, morning and night. I also invested in a ‘Clarisonic Mia Cleansing brush’ to dig down deep and rid my skin of all the impurities and bacteria. I must say, 3 months after sticking to this pretty strict regime, I did start to see improvements and went from seeing 3 patches of cystic spots appear per month, to experiencing only 1-2 patches of cystic spots per month. It may sound like a small improvement, but honestly I was so happy.
However, after 9 months, the tide started to change and instead of seeing the original 3 patches of cystic spots appear per month, they started to increase even more. The final head, was when I quit smoking, it got even worse! Yes, I quit the one thing in life which was sure fire, to kill me off in the future and in return I was rewarded with more spots – the spots, became so sore and looked like boils on the skin…
Consulting my GP Doctor
Whilst trying all of the above at home remedies, I was going back and forth to my doctors regularly because I was so unhappy with my skin and was becoming very self consciousness of my skin, to the point that I wouldn’t go to the gym without any make up on.
Approach 1
The GP at first, thought that my acne experience could be down to an hormone imbalance, so we tried several types of contraception pills before moving on to the Copper Coil, after realising that making changes to the hormones in my body was not only, not helping my skin but was also not very good for the balance of my moods.
Approach 2
After working through, the hormone stage, my doctor then proceeded to prescribe me with an antiseptic wash called ‘HibiScrub’. The prescribed wash is something that Doctor Surgeons use to scrub down, before they commence surgery. Yes, odd I know, I was somewhat dubious when the Doctor first prescribed it to me and apprehensive the first time I went to use it. However, surprisingly it was a lovely pinky red colour and wasn’t too bad to apply. It did leave my skin feeling quite dry, but it seemed to work quite well for the first six months. However, disappointedly after a while my skin went back to normal, if not worse. Its as if after short amount of time, your skin adapts and finds new ways to overcome your preventative method and comes back with a vengeance.
Approach 3
My last chance saloon, was the use of prescribed Antibiotic tablets and a topical treatment (Benzoyl peroxide) combined together. Truthfully, the only effects I saw from these treatments were feeling sick throughout the day and dry skin wherever I applied the cream. At this point I was so deflated, as the Doctor had said I was near guaranteed to see results from this treatment.
After trying all the approaches available to me, I was majorly disheartened and my spots were as painful as ever. The Doctor told me that the last option available to me was to try a controversial drug called Isotretinoin (also known as Roaccutane). My Doctor warned me that there were major side effects involved with the drug – although at this point, this didn’t put me off – it was more the fact that there was a long waiting list and appointments for it would have to be kept at the local hospital during inconvenient times in the day. There would be many appointments, first of all for the initial consultation and then monthly consultations, blood and pregnancy tests. I knew for me that I would be unable to work this into my working life in London, so I was heartbroken that after 3 solid years of trying to obtain clear skin that this seemed like the end of the road for me.
Deciding to go Private
Six months passed since deciding to go no further with working on my Acne and I went on a trip with my partner to Thailand where my cystic acne got to the worst point it had ever been. Instead of sipping on cocktails, walking care-free along the beaches, I was conscious of not wearing make up and the spots on my face. After talking it over with Joe, he said “why don’t you just go private?”, find a private dermatologist near to work and go on Roaccutane. My first reaction was, “I’ve read and heard its very expensive” (although when Joe questioned me on how much it would be, I truthfully didn’t know). Joe helped me to see that Acne was something that had affected me for over half a decade and that if there is something which is proven to get rid of it, not just in the short-term but in the long-term too, then why would I not try that route, especially after I had already spent so much money on so many other different ‘lotions and potions’ promising to help clear my skin.
A couple months later, after extensive research on Roaccutane, the side effects, the good and the bad and reading many forums with people who had been on a course of the drug. I took the plunge and booked a consultation at Bupa, a ten minute walk away from my office.
From the very start, the whole experience was amazing, the Dermatologist, explained the reasons why I would never see any long-term effects from the treatments I had already undertaken, opened my eyes to the fact that some of my ‘holy grail’ skin products were actually likely to be making my acne worse and dispelled some of my fears about taking Roaccutane. We spoke about the costs of taking a course and with the encouragement to take my own pregnancy tests and get blood tests at my local hospital on the NHS, the overall cost of the consultations and the prescriptions wouldn’t amount to more than £1000 for the entire course. A price I was happy to pay for long lasting effects from Cystic Acne.
Isotretinoin (Roaccutane)
Once I finished the final part of my research and read the leaflets that my Dermatologist had given to me on Roaccutane, I decided to take the plunge and start the treatment. I went for my first appointment, where my Doctor weighed me in order to calculate what my overall dosage would be for the full course, took a blood and pregnancy test to ensure I was not pregnant. She then talked me through the things that I could not do (get pregnant), that I should refrain from drinking alcohol and use another form of contraception in addition to the Copper coil that I still had in. Lastly, the loudest bit of information I remember is that if I felt low or depressed, that I should talk to my GP or book in to see her immediately, to see if this is a side effect of the Roaccutane that I was experiencing.
My Experience
I started off on a small dose of 1x 20mg tablet per day for the first month, 2x 20mg tablets in month 2 and then up to 3x 20mg tablets in month three and onwards. In addition, I changed all my skin care and make up to products which had no oil in them – checking meticulously the ingredients label before buying new products. After all, if I was going to embark on this invasive drug treatment I wanted to give myself the best possible chance at results and still to this day I never use a skincare product which contains oil. Throughout the treatment, I would undertake monthly pregnancy tests and blood tests as well as consultations at the start, month 1, 2, 4 and 6 of the treatment.
Side Effects
I must say the first month on the tablets was really not a bad experience for me, I saw no side effects and I honestly thought, “what are all these side effects that everyone talks about?”.
Dry Lips
Month 2, I saw the start of severe dry lips and if I had a cheeky drink, I would feel it the next day and would feel very dehydrated. Flip forward to Month 3 and my experience was very different! My lips were severely dry, to the point you would see folds of dry skin on my lips. I became the Lip Balm Queen and had a tube of Elizabeth Arden 8 Hour Gel in every nook and cranny of my house, car, handbags and office. I no longer wore lipstick as it would only over-accentuate the cracks and folds of skin on my lips.
Joint Pain
In addition to the dry lips, I started to experience severe right leg/back joint pain. The pain got so bad, that I would wake up in the middle of the night and would cry from the pain it took me to walk to the toilet. At the time I thought this was related to working out and I started seeing a physiotherapist – little did I know that it was all related to the tablets. Once I lowered my dose to 2x 20mg a day, the joint pain began to ease up. I also upped my water intake to 4 litres a day and this helped to ease some of the side effects.
Brittle/Dry Skin
The last of the effect I saw was I would get rashes and patches of red sore dry skin on my right hand. My right hand only! It became very sore, until I started using a product called ‘Lanolin’ each night as recommend by friend who would also use it on the patches of skin where she had Eczema.
Outcome
It wasn’t really to month 3 that I started to see an improvement in my skin. Towards the end of my treatment I had not had one cystic spot for nearly 2 months – which honestly was a miracle for me and I was so happy! That being said, I chose not to complete the final month of my course as my Dad passed away and I was very aware of how low this the same pain losing my mum ten years before. In light, of this, I chose to not complete the course because of the warned side effects of depression on Roaccuatane, and I didn’t want to add something more into my body would could potentially bring me even lower than I already felt.
Even though I did not complete the course my skin remained remarkably clear for the next year.
Roaccuatane Round 2
Unfortunately, after a year, my cystic acne started to return. I decided to see how it progressed for a further six months, but with my wedding around the corner and plans to start a family after we get married, I booked in for another appointment with my Dermatologist. It turned out that my decision to not complete my previous course led to my acne to not fully disappear. Although, my Dermatologist also said that a small percentage of people would need to undergo a course of Roaccutane more than once in order to get the long lasting desired effects.
Side Effects
Completing the course once again, I saw the same side effects as I did undertaking the course the first time. The only additional side effect, I say was the patches of dry and broken skin started to appear all over my body, ranging from my ankles and elbows, to my shoulders and bum. The side effects of dry lips remained and my severe joint pain didn’t really make an appearance to the last month, where it stopped me from being able to work out for the last 2 weeks of it and leaving me walking like an old lady.
Final Results
Here I am, fresh after completing my second and final course of Roaccutane 2 days ago – and I honestly could not be happier! I have been cystic spot free for three months now and I am hopeful that this will continue. I cannot wait to see how my skin develops over the next few months. I thought I would provide you some before and after pictures below, so that you can see the progression of my skin from before Course 1 to today.
BEFORE
After
Final thoughts
Honestly, I cannot tell you how happy I am now, 6 years on from the start of my adult acne journey. Taking Roaccutane really has been the thing to help my skin overcome the painful cystic spots I used to get several times a month. I am so grateful for the results.
That being said, it is a hugely invasive drug and I really don’t think you realise the impact it has on your body until you start take it. There is no amount of reading that truly make you understand the power of the drugs until you take it yourself. Compared to others, the side effects I experienced were not as bad as others, however, the joint pain I did experience was severe, it made me cry in pain and at times I could not walk without crying from pain. There was many a time, I did wonder if I should stop taking the drug.
For me, the most worrying of the potential side effects, which I thankfully did not see, is the potential for you to feel depressed and very low – this is a side effect not to ever be overlooked and as someone who is very acutely aware of the power and effect of mental health, this is something that had me deliberating over whether to take the drug for many months. If I had seen this side effect then I have no doubt in my mind that I would have stopped taking this drug.
Roaccuatane is not a drug for the faint hearted. It is an amazing drug which provides amazing results. My one bit of advice, is to make sure you do your research, and I mean extensive research. Think about how the drug and its side effects would work in your day-to-day life. The decision to start a course of this treatment should only ever be entered into with you eyes WIDE open and your MIND well educated.
After undergoing a long acne journey, I hope that by me providing details of my experience that it may be helpful to anyone else undergoing the same journey or deliberating on whether to start.
If you have any questions, then feel free to leave them below and I will get back to you with an answer below for everyone to see and also learn at the same time.
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