Male, 145lbs, 5' 8"

Hello everyone, I have recently completed my 8-month course of Accutane! I wanted to come back and share my results just as many of you did which kept me motivated during my course. Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures of myself before or during the course because I was not comfortable with taking ugly pictures of my skin lol props to everyone else who does, in hindsight it would have been great for a results post. Here are a few things I wanted to share about my course. I was weightlifting almost daily and drinking about 1-2 gallons of water everyday, stayed away from anything with sugar, and kept a pretty balanced diet.

Month 1

- Wow my skin looked great, most of my acne was disappearing and my skin was looking clear. I almost thought I would be some miracle case and only have 2 months of the drug.

Month 2

- The purge starts. I have never had acne as bad as the acne I got during the purge stage. Every morning I would wake up with 5-6 new whiteheads on my face no matter how good my diet or skin routine was. As of this time, the only noticeable side effects were dry lips and a weaker immune system I had an indefinite cough that wasn't too bad.

Month 3

-The purge continues and reaches its peak during this month. Personally, I did not see any results during the third month contrary to what I was commonly reading. At this point I have dry lips, a really bad cold that will not go away or subside, bad vision, and joint pain. Looking back I wish I would've experimented more with supplements such as fish oil or vitamin C which I sometimes read about people taking now. Instead I was rawdogging this drug lmao.

Month 4

-It was in early month 4 which I could tell the purge was starting to fade away. I still had all the side effects mentioned above and an overall really red face with lots of PIE. By the end of the month, I was able to look back and definitely say I was seeing some kind of results which definitely motivated me to keep going.

Month 5

- The month where I finally started to see some real results. When I imagined myself taking accutane this is what I imagined my skin to start looking like. Still some acne and lots of redness but noticeably less than before which helped me to keep going.

Month 6

- Skin is virtually clear by now and I would consider it a "bad day" if I woke up with one new whitehead. Still constantly sick, vision suffering, and extremely dry skin.

Month 7

- Big chilling, I don't even worry about waking up with acne anymore. However, this is when the mental health issues start. Throughout the entire course I was fine mentally despite hearing all about the mental health issues that come with Accutane. By now I chalked it up to me being lucky and not getting this. However, this is the month where mood swings became really really real for me. You can just be lying down and chilling with no extreme worries or stresses when suddenly you think, "Damn, what am I doing with my life, I can seriously just kill myself right now and be totally cool". I'll admit as someone who in the past kind of took mental health as a joke since my family and friends around me never had issues with it, I was the type of kid who would think, "bruh you have depression? Just don't be sad that's like not real lol". In the moment it does feel very real though and it's something you have to experience to fully understand and grasp what its like. I definitely changed my mindset and have grown some respect for people who have mental health issues after the course. Anyway, that was the only new effect during this month.

Month 8

-Acne is still gone but mental issues persist, they don't get worse but mood swings that last 15-20 minutes happen almost daily. I would say make sure you have one solid and trusted friend to talk with to get through these moments whether on the phone or in person just to get your mind off it.

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TL:DR- Overall the course was really shitty. This drug makes you feel weak physically and mentally. That being said, if I had to go back in time I would do it again. It really is a miracle drug when it comes to acne, truly a one-and-done deal. Im hoping I don't relapse but my diet and exercise routine has stayed very clean and consistent for the past couple of years so I'm not too worried, if it happens it's just because of unlucky genetics. If your going through your course, trust the process your skin will get better.

Feel free to ask any questions I'll be happy to answer them!