Week Five & Six

Dermatologist Visit

Not much different in week 4 so thought I would update for week 5 and 6 together. Went back to the dermatologist last week (19/05/10) - had blood tests the week before (got butchered at the local chemist so I will never go there again!) and Derm says Liver Function and Cholesterol are normal - she doesnt want to see anymore blood tests now as apparently this would have affected me already if it was going to. Had to do another pregnancy test at the hospital again too.

Derm said that there was a great improvement for only a month's treatment and she was very pleased with the results. She prescribed me the same dose again (40mg) once a day for another month and I have to go back in 4 weeks to see her again (15/06/10).

Side effects wise things are pretty much the same - my lips are still extremely dry (on about tube number 5 or 6 of Blistex!) and the skin around my lip and chin are still peeling quite a bit. No major breakouts to talk of though, although I did get 2 very small spots on my cheek which cleared up within about 2 days. Skin has slightly flared up on week 6's pics above (mainly due to hormones I think!). But otherwise continuing to clear up nicely :) I have been getting new symptoms of very itchy/dry/red skin on my arms (they also tend to peel) but I find it helps if I apply body lotion daily.

Week Three

first week on 40mg...

Well this week I haven exactly been concentrating on my skin too much, I've had a really bad cold/flu most of this week and have been quite poorly with it :(

I started the 40mg dose last Friday and to be honest, didnt see it start to kick in until about Tuesday this week. Then my lips started to get really bad, they were cracking and even dryer than they have been and they started to peel. I abandoned the Carmex I had bought as it just wasnt doing anything and went back to applying blistex healing cream about every 15 mins. So far this seems to be the only product that actually heals and protects my lips - vaseline and carmex just do nothing!

My skin around my lip and chin area has started to madly peel and flake away the last couple of days - I've been moisturising but the Derm told me not to over moisturise as then its reducing the whole point of what the Accutane is supposed to be doing. So I've resisted!

My nose has been really bad this week - mainly because of my cold and I have not stopped sneezing/blowing my nose all week and its really attacked the skin around it (probably because the accutane is thinning it out). I think it might take a long time to heal as its not only the skin around the nose, its inside too :(

Thats pretty much it for this week reall, my sore eyes have been ok and the scalp hasnt been too bad this week. Got to get blood tests done again in the next coming week in preparation for seeing the Derm a week on Wednesday.