Perfect Skin - Page 3

There is no clinically proven link between Accutane and depression. I've been on it for months and I've been completely normal psychologically: no depression, no mood swings, nothing. The side effects I do have, as I mentioned before, are annoying at worst:

They all stem from dryness in one way or another
-Dry skin (controlled by using Cetaphil lotion 1-2 times a day)
-Some scaling on my hands (controlled with some topical 1-2 times a day)
-Dry scalp (controlled with dandruff shampoo)
-Occasional nosebleeds (only last about a minute, controlled with petroleum jelly inside nose before bed)
-Some minor joint stiffness at times
-Sometimes contacts get itchy

It's sort of a pain to keep it all under control, but to have acne completely disappear after trying every other (reputable) solution, it's worth it.

"Clinically proven" is a loaded phrase anyway. The side effects come in varying severity, and some people don't get them at all. You're fairly lucky, in that respect. Everyone on it has to deal with dryness, and you don't even seem to have gotten that as badly as some.

I had a link to a site cataloguing several studies done on the psychological effects of Accutane, and none of them proved a substantial causal link between Accutane and depression. I'll try to find it.

When the side effects are manageable, as they were for me, it's more than worth the effort. The hell that I went through on that drug is far less than the hell of hating the way you look, and being self-conscious of it.

Everyone I know (directly and indirectly) has said the same thing. It's strange, to me. I would never consider the hell of accutane to be worth getting rid of acne. But, then, to be fair, my acne is unpleasant, but fairly light.

Yeah man, bad acne can be REALLY bad. You really don't want to know first hand.

I think the link between Accutane and depression is not causal, but it is there. I know before I was on it, I was already down enough for having a face full of painful, disgusting wounds, and then taking it made the rest of my skin look worse, and systemic effects probably weren't helping much. People really look at you differently, or more accurately, don't look, when your face looks that bad. It's understandable really, but obviously it doesn't help you feel better. This, compounded with the reclusiveness that looking diseased was causing me, definitely put me in a bad mental state for quite a while. You start feeling awkward, stop going out as much, sit in and do nothing more often, get less exercise, start looking worse and feeling worse for that... it can easily become a vicious cycle that can be hard to get out of.

To be fair, before even mentioning Accutane, my derm had me go through almost every possible combination of oral and topical prescription products. None of them had an effect on the acne, and several of them had undesirable side effects. It was pretty much a frustrating waste of money.

Same here.

I notice a huge difference in the way people look at me now. Maybe it's just psychological, but either way I love looking to my left or right and have girls staring at me. Huge confidence booster in that department. There are some days when I wake up to a beautifully clear face and think to myself "Today is gonna be bad ass.". Now, if only I could get my hair to look good on a regular basis.

are there any OTC benz peroxide products that are strong enough (5%) or am i stuck with just oxy or clearisil or something? thanks.

Stronger BP doesn't help, it just irritates more. 5% is probably fine, but for most people, 2.5 works the same. And yeah, there are lots of them available.

I had to get a prescription to get 5%, which is ridiculous because the only thing they had on the shelf was 10% or above. I guess you could thin out the 10% or something, but I don't understand why a pharmacist can't sell me the 5%.

That's weird; I think they only had 5% OTC at my pharmacy.

Well Oxy 10 and the other way-too-high-power ones are 10%. They probably have higher than that too.

Incidentally, (and I may have read this here) the tube of catalyst they give you with Bondo auto body filler is like 100% BPO.

Right, but my pharmacy blows and they only had store brand.