ROACCUTANE - MONTHS 2 & 3

Yo Yo Yo. So I know technically I should have posted month two in december. But guess what?! I DIDN'T. I am actually sorry. Sincerely. Shizzle got a little crazy in the run up to christmas. However I am now here! Updating yooooou, showing you pictures of my icky faaaace. YAY! I've combined months 2 and 3 as essentially nothing changed between them really... you'll see...




Big thing to note before we get down to it is that my dosage was increased from 20mg p/day to 60mg p/day at the beginning of month two. If you get on ok with the 20mg p/day then its pretty standard practice from them to up the anti. It's important that you know this as it was month two when I really started to notice some real side effects and thats likely down to the increase in the amount of this shit I had pumping through my system.





The Reaction

DRY DRY DRY DRY DRY.

First and most noticeably the skin on my body really started to dry out. Shins, Knees, Ankles, Elbows. I've never really been one to use a body moisturiser, not unless I was out to impress or maybe on a rare occasion in summer when I let my legs run wild and free, blinding passes by with their mighty whiteness! MIGHTY WHITENESS, BLIND THEE WHOM GET IN THINE WAY AND RUN, RUN TO THE WATER. BE FREE.

Anyway...

I've never been one to hydrate anywhere other than my face because I haven't really needed to. Alas this is no more. My elbows especially became painfully dry and my shins did that sort of weird scaly thing. Do you know what I mean? Where it looks almost liked cracked sand in the desert? Like that. It's not unbearable though, and as long as I go at the buggers with targeted 'for dry skin' moisturiser once a day and have a some sort of super powered beasty tucked about my person (e.g. Elizabeth Arden's 8 hour cream) to top my arm knees up (arm knees - tumblr's answer to 'what is an elbow?') I'm all good.

Something that was also brand new to me was the appearance on my forearms of tiny little itchy patches of skin. A sort of very mild yet visible rash. At first I only had a couple of occurrences of this on each arm and they seemed to piss off after a few days, quicker if I treated them with a dab of ointment or something. Towards the end of month three though this worsened and became more frequent. Again, it's cope-able, nothing to make me throw the pills in the air and run for the hills.

Month three has brought with it dry eyes. I wear contacts so my eyes are lacking moisture most days anyway but on certain days now it's really bad. I got's drops though! Contact lens friend ones! Plus I'm making more of an effort to wear my fishbowl glasses (I'm almost blind...) on the regular, which my optician will be super happy about. Whoop!

The last real physical negative side effect is fatigue. I am bloomin' shattered. All the time. Lots and lots. Like the energy has been drained from my life source or something. That could be aliens though I guess. They like doing that sort of thing right?

Now I didn't think I'd ever being saying this... but a positive *YES POSITIVE* side effect has been that my hair, which previously would become greasy at the roots after a day or two, can now easily go two or three days without needing a wash. The lightest spritz of some dry shampoo just to jazz shit up again and I'm good to go. Not guna argue with that!

That's about it really, lips are the same, still dry, really dry, still blistexing the fuck outta them. No change in mood really. Normal hormonal lumps and bumps but nothing crazy. Not that I've noticed anyway. Month three in comparison to month one does have a lot more going on, but I'm ok. I'm doing it. IT'S GOING TO BE OK.




The Results

I wasn't really expecting any real improvement on month two and I didn't see any. At the end of month three though I feel like there's been a slight change. I've not have any real new breakouts and the spots I started with are lessening and fading. I knew It'd be a few months before I saw results so this kinda surprised me a bit. My skins surface has started to even out for the first time in years. A definate change has also been that I'm now fully a 'dry skin' gal, not an oily T-zone in site!  No doubt about that. I was struggling at first as the moisturisers I owned were targeted at sensitive, acne prone skin, so they weren't really doing the job. Thankfully after some searching and googling and a bit of pot luck I found a wicked one in the Eucerin Dry Skin Replenishing Cream. That stuff is DA BOMB.

PICCYS. READY?

SURE?

 OK!

MONTH TWO

MONTH TWO

MYSTICAL TYPE WARP INTO THE FUTURE

TIMEY WIMEY SQUIGGLY WIGGLY

MONTH THREE

MONTH THREE

So there ya go. Months two and three done and dusted. We are making progress people! Slow, dry progress but PROGRESS!

HAND TOUCHES AND EAR LICKS FOR ALL. xxx