I originally documented my experience of being on Roaccutane with monthly updates and weekly progress photos on my previous lifestyle blog Thginkcm. However, as this blog is now deleted, I unfortunately have lost the majority of these posts, along with their photos. I have been able to salvage two posts from this series, my Roaccutane Month Three update, as well as the below post on my overall Roaccutane experience. I appreciate these posts won’t mean as much without the context of being able to track the progress of my skin, or as many of the original photos, however I still wanted to preserve the two posts I could save.
The whole time I was on Roaccutane, I was thinking ahead to the day that I would finally have clear skin. It seemed unimaginable, so it’s kind of surreal to know that I am at that place now.
It has been the weirdest experience looking at the before and after pictures for this post too. I honestly can’t believe how much my skin has changed – and I also can’t quite believe that my skin was ever as bad as it was! I have been so lucky that my experience on Roaccutane was so positive, and I am very thankful that it has worked for me, and has been so worth it in the end.
One of the reasons I started this blog (Thginkcm) was to keep track of how my skin reacted to Roaccutane, and so, as I have been documenting my experience on here each month, I felt that it would only be right to close this journey with a final summary of my whole experience.
Before Roaccutane, I was at a place where disgust and feeling self-conscious about my acne had hit me all at once. For a while I think I had been trying to ignore it, and pretending to myself that it wasn’t bothering me, but in reality it was. I didn’t feel comfortable leaving my room without makeup, let alone the house. I wouldn’t visit anyone in my first year of university unless I had makeup on, and would even put makeup on to go round friend’s flats for film nights, just because I felt so uncomfortable and aware of my skin. As it got into my second year of uni, I tried to pretend it didn’t bother me as much, but I remember going to a Zumba class one evening and looking in the mirror at my face and nearly crying because I couldn’t stand the way that I looked. I envied everyone else for their clear skin, and it just felt so unfair that I couldn’t have the same.
I re-booked a dermatologist appointment, something which I had been avoiding for quite a while as I knew the only option left for me was Roaccutane. I had only heard horror stories of this drug in the news, and was really, really not keen on the idea of being put on it. That on top of the fact that you have to have blood tests while you are on the medication, and I have the biggest fear of needles, I really wanted to avoid it.
The problem was that I had tried everything else. Every medicine and topical lotion the doctor and dermatologist had to offer, everything I could find for acne at the supermarket and the drugstore – none of it worked for me. This was so disheartening because it just felt like nothing was going to change. So when I sat with the dermatologist and she filled out my forms for Roaccutane, it just felt like an inevitable last hope.
I started taking the medication in March 2018, with an initial starting dose of 30mg a day, before moving onto 55mg a day for the following four months. In the month between my appointment and actually starting the medication I had done so much research to try and make myself feel as prepared as possible. I read so many blog posts and watched so many Youtube videos to try and compile a list of products and tips that would help me over the coming months. Videos from YouTubers such as Katie Snooks and Corrie Bromfield were a massive help for this.
Acne-wise from months one to three I definitely experienced the initial purge that I had heard a lot of people talk about. Even though I was anticipating it, it was still quite rubbish to go through, as I was really restless to just get my skin cleared up and it felt as though I was going backwards a bit.
I think overall I was pretty lucky with the side effects that I had. It’s quite easy with a medication like Roaccutane to get very caught up on the negative experiences you hear in the news, and it can make the prospect quite nerve-wracking. However, although the side-effects I had were a bit annoying/ not pleasant, the benefits far outweighed the negatives for sure!
I would say that the worst and most consistent side-effect I experienced were very dry lips. I felt super prepared for this and right from the outset would wear like an inch thick of lip balm to try and prevent it, but alas it was inevitable just as my dermatologist had said. My lips got to the stage where the skin would keep peeling off in sheets, and the edges of my mouth/ my lip-line would crack and bleed quite a lot. It hurt to move my mouth, and my lips definitely looked quite sore all the time too.
My skin also became very sensitive, so most of the skincare I used had to be for very dry/ sensitive skin, or for babies. I would quite often get rashes on my arms for no reason, and my face and eyes would be quite red and irritated. It was weird because when I was told my skin would get very dry I was expecting it to get rough and chapped, but instead it got quite tight and very itchy which was super uncomfortable.
I would say that it took until about mid-way through month four before I noticed my skin starting to clear. If you are going on Roaccutane I would definitely recommend taking regular pictures of your skin, as it really makes it easier to spot progress. Sometimes you can feel like the acne has plateaued a little, so it can be quite a relief to look back on pictures and realise how far your skin has come.
Throughout this whole experience it really helped so much to read other bloggers’ experiences, as well as to look through the Roaccutane hashtag on social media. Realising that everybody’s journey and side effects are different, was comforting at times when it felt like my skin had plateaued, or that it wasn’t really going anywhere.
I am now two months on from finishing Roaccutane, and while my skin does still have some acne scars, I haven’t had a spot in months and it has been the most wonderful feeling. I feel so much more comfortable with my face, and no longer feel like I need to hide behind makeup any more. I’m so super glad my lips have returned back to normal too, and I am looking forward to enjoying my ‘normal’ skin now. It’s nice not to see pictures of my face and recoil anymore – I actually feel a little more me and I am so happy.
This is a post ‘from the archive’, meaning it was previously published on my (now deleted) lifestyle blog Thginkcm. Original upload date has been included in the post title. Post content has mostly been kept the same, unless an updated authors note has been added. For more info see my post ‘Hello, I’m Back!’
