My Skin Journey
From Birth Control, to Accutane, and everything in between
A little background on me. My name is Samantha Staab, I’m from San Diego, CA but I live just outside of Washington, DC now. I grew up playing just about every sport you could imagine, very active, always out and about with friends or sports teams. I played division 1 soccer at Clemson University, and was drafted 4th overall in the 2019 NWSL Draft to the Washington Spirit in DC. This will be my third year with the Spirit, the professional women’s soccer team in DC. I just turned 24 years old. I’ve dealt with acne pretty consistently since I was about 15 years old. Wow, writing this all out makes me realize it really has been a long, long road to get to this point.
I remember the first thing I would do every morning is check out my skin. See if I had any new breakouts, if anything got worse, or if somehow my skin was getting better. This was always such a disheartening thing to do to start the day but I just had to check every single morning. I’d scroll through Instagram or Facebook and see all these people with flawless skin and just hope that my skin would somehow get anywhere near that. I would get so insecure when I would have breakouts and have to leave the house because I was worried that’s the first thing people would notice about me too. Obviously not everything you see online is real, that a lot of people use filters or editing apps to make themselves look better, but I was so set on getting back something that I very briefly had, clear skin, and I saw that in other people wherever I went or looked.
Anyone who has struggled with any skin insecurity issues, or insecurities in general has 100% had someone say “Oh, it’s not that bad!” or “Its barely noticeable” or “you’re still beautiful inside and out” to them. It has to be some of the most frustrating things anyone has ever said to me. YOU may not notice it, but it’s the first thing I notice about myself every single day. I notice every single bump or mark on my face and analyze it to no end. I would say I was, and still am hyper-focused on the appearance of my skin, which isn’t necessarily healthy, but I really feel like I have a much better relationship and acceptance for who I am and who I want to be now through everything. We all have our own insecurities and journey’s with them along the way. I’m lucky enough to say that I feel like a better version of myself because I’ve overcome my biggest insecurity. I’ve been through a lot during my soccer career, playing at some of the highest levels you can play at, and overcoming adversity at every level. But, battling my confidence issues relating to my skin, and overcoming those issues, has been one of my proudest accomplishments. I feel like a different person now, a better and more authentic version of myself, and I’ve learned so much about myself.
I guess I’ll start from the beginning with my skin journey, high school. Beginning of high school I started to get the normal teenage breakouts but it really wasn’t anything bad at all. I remember asking my mom and dad about their skin growing up and my mom said she had some forehead breakouts but nothing crazy and I shouldn’t be worried. I remember being at ease with this response even though I did start getting breakouts on my forehead and around my cheeks. But again, it really wasn’t anything bad or to get upset about so I dealt with the bigger issue for me at the time, my periods. Like I said at the beginning I grew up very active and from an athletic family. My mom said that her periods were never heavy or a problem and again I was optimistic about this as well. My mom and I are basically the same person, so when she was giving me this advice I figured I would follow in her footsteps just like everything else up until this point. However, I did not follow my mom’s footsteps with my periods. I had awful periods. Heavy bleeding for a few days and I would get so incredibly nauseous my first day of my periods that I physically couldn’t do anything or I would throw up and get sick. I remember having to call my parents on multiple occasions at school to come and pick me up because I couldn’t function at school. I was so nauseous and sick I’d have to go home the first day of every period for a couple months. I would pray that my first day of my period didn’t fall on a day that I had a game or I really couldn’t perform, I was that uncomfortable every single time. Finally, I had had enough of it and decided to go on birth control to hopefully help so I wouldn’t be out of commission one day a month at least. So, towards the end of my first year of high school, I started the pill. I started on a lower dose of hormones because my mom and I had done some research on the side effects like weight gain, emotional changes, breakouts, etc. and my doctor said that this would be the best way to start for me, especially since I was an athlete and didn’t want my body to change too much. I remember feeling the effects right away. If you aren’t familiar with birth control, you take the hormone pills daily, for three weeks, around the same time daily if you can, and then you take sugar pills for a week to tell your body to basically have your period then. You do this cycle every month and your body should essentially run like clock-work and you can kind of have control over your period. I’m not a doctor and don’t know the specific details on all that so we won’t get into it. For me, I remember running like clockwork. I could even tell what time on the specific day I would get my period because I had become so predictable now. Not only that, but my periods weren’t nearly as heavy, and I wouldn’t get nauseous to the point where I couldn’t function at all. I don’t remember having any significant weight gain or dramatic side effects at all from starting the pill and was overall really happy with my decision.
I started birth control my first year of high school and my skin wasn’t terrible at all. Like I said, I had some breakouts on my forehead and a little on my cheeks that I wanted to get rid of so I started talking to a dermatologist about how to combat these breakouts. Once I saw the dermatologist, she suggested a few cleansers, lotions, and topical treatments I could add to my daily routine to hopefully rid me of these pesky breakouts. I remember starting with the simple Neutrogena Face Scrub with the cooling beads because I thought the fact that it cooled on your face meant it was working. And I liked the feeling of the cooling beads. The first topical treatment I tried was Epiduo gel. It was very highly regarded by dermatologists at the time and I think there was even a commercial for it. I remember being so optimistic about having this plan in place with my face wash and topical I really didn’t think anything could go wrong, I’m the type of person that loves to have a schedule, plan, and get things done. So once I have a plan in place I’m going to follow through 110% with the plan. I had everything set and followed my skincare regimen religiously. Since I was really active, I rarely wore makeup too. But, my skin never got better. My forehead breakouts didn’t get any better and the breakouts on my cheek probably got worse if anything. This miracle topical that was advertised as working for all these people, didn’t work for me and it really took a toll on my confidence. Because of this, I went through the high school phase of wearing ridiculous amounts of makeup to cover anything that I didn’t like about my skin. I went from never wearing makeup, to wearing it every day to try and cover my insecurities and feel more comfortable in my own skin. Obviously this just covered everything up but never actually helped so I needed to keep trying to find the right regimen for me. My next step was to try a face wash with benzoyl peroxide and two different topical treatments. One in the morning, and a different one at night. I found a face wash with the highest amount of benzoyl peroxide, 10%, in it and thought I would try it out with my new combination of topical treatments that would hopefully work. The benzoyl peroxide face wash was so rough and drying on my skin I had to stop only after a few uses, so I went back to the drawing board with my dermatologist. We settled on a simple face wash and lotion combo in Cetaphil, stuck to the same two topicals for my morning and night routine and started on an oral antibiotic called doxycycline along with my birth control pill that I took daily. This was about spring of my freshman year, so towards the end of the school year. I was running track at the time for my school track team and playing club soccer after school so I was in the sun a lot. I didn’t realize that my amount of sun exposure would be an issue but after a month of taking the oral antibiotic I started getting rashes going down my index finger and covering the tops of both of my hands. It was uncomfortable so I had to stop this oral antibiotic and try and find another with less side effects because of my active routine. This was the first time that my dermatologist had brought up Accutane as an option. I remember one of my friends mentioning that they were going to do it and how grueling it was. I felt like it was a curse word to admit that you were on Accutane, like the stigma was really bad. I remember being kind of annoyed that my dermatologist had brought it up because I felt like my skin wasn’t “that bad” to constitute this type of medicine. I felt like we hadn’t exhausted every option so I wanted to find another solution instead. We ended up settling on minocycline. A sister medicine to doxycycline but proven to have less side effects. Taking an antibiotic for an extended period of time isn’t necessarily good for your body because although it does get rid of the bad bacteria, the good bacteria you need also can get wiped from your body in this time. Taking an antibiotic this long also can weaken your immune system by wiping out the good bacteria, so I started to take a probiotic to try and counteract this as well and make sure I wouldn’t get super sick after this medication. So now I was taking my birth control, my minocycline oral antibiotic, applying my topical in the morning and night, and I had my simple cleanser and lotion as well. I followed this regimen religiously as well hoping that it would do the trick and help my skin. FINALLY my skin showed significant improvements and it was amazing. I stuck to this regimen for a while, I was on the oral antibiotic at full dose for a couple months, which wasn’t ideal but I wanted my skin to clear so bad. Then I slowly, very slowly, started to taper off with the antibiotics and sticking with everything else the same. I would do every other day with the antibiotics for a few months and then a lower dose every other day for a few months, and continued to taper off until there wasn’t anything else left for me to take. My skin finally started to look great and I was so happy! I remember the first compliment I got on my skin in high school and I almost cried I was so overjoyed that I had finally gotten to this point. I stuck with my birth control and the two topicals through the rest of high school and didn’t have any crazy breakouts happen. I thought my battle with acne was over, and it was, but for only a short time.
Once I got to college at Clemson, I had to switch my prescriptions over to our on campus prescribers and for some reason they couldn’t prescribe the birth control that I was on and I had to change to a different brand. It started with an N, I forget the name but I had to switch brands. My skin started to act up a bit. I’m no expert, but I think it was partially due to the different climate, my skin wasn’t used to the humidity in South Carolina, and the change in birth control. My skin wasn’t as bad as before, but it was something I wanted to handle and I knew something that worked for me already, the minocycline, and decided to get on a prescription for that again. I did the whole regimen again, started to taper off with no issues, just as I had done before in high school. Once my body readjusted to the slightly different birth control, new weather, and the extra kick with another round of medication, my skin looked great again. I would get the occasional pimple, but my skin really was the dream skin that I had been working towards for a few years up to that point. After a failed round of antibiotics, this second round, coupled with my same regimen, seemed to have done the trick. I was so happy in my skin and barely ever wore makeup because I was that confident, finally!
I made it through the rest of college and into my rookie season in the NWSL with great skin. I started to do some research however on my birth control. I had been on birth control for about 7-8 years by that point and I felt like it was controlling too much of my body and emotions. I also just felt like we really don’t know the long term effects of birth control on our bodies because it is a fairly modern drug. That was just my opinion, I think people can obviously decide what is best for them when it comes to birth control or any medication for the matter, but that’s when I really decided I wanted to stop taking birth control. I stopped taking my birth control, cold turkey, around June/July 2019. I don’t regret my decision to stop taking birth control, because that was the best move for me with what I was feeling. But I would definitely consult a doctor or dermatologist or gynecologist before just stopping completely. Right after I stopped taking my birth control I didn’t have any crazy mood changes, period changes, or bad side effects. It wasn’t until three or four months later that I felt like my hormones were completely out of whack. I would have emotional highs for a few days and then just be a mess with lows and irrational emotions the next few days with no explanation for either high or low. My natural temperament is fairly chill and relaxed, with no crazy mood swings ever. So experiencing these highs and lows was really different for me. I was so all over the place, physically and emotionally and it was not a good version of myself at all. This continued for a few months and I just felt different and not myself for a while. My first few periods that I experienced after stopping birth control were terrible again, also. I had terrible cramps, felt nauseous, and experienced heavy bleeding again. I had all these unnatural hormones controlling my body for so long that it was only necessary to go through an adjustment period. Eventually, my periods got much more manageable and I didn’t experience super severe side effects of periods monthly anymore. The adjustment I wasn’t ready for was my acne to come back. And come back like I had never experienced before.
I went to Australia the end of my rookie year to play in the W-League for the Western Sydney Wanderers in the offseason of my NWSL career. I left end of October and didn’t come back to the US until mid-march playing all over Australia. Come December I started breaking out again, but this was like nothing I had ever experienced. Now it had been about 6 months since I had stopped my birth control. I had read online that your body usually regulates itself and goes back to “normal” within a range of months equivalent to the amount of years you had been on the pill. Since I was on the pill for seven or so years, I assumed about seven months after stopping I could expect to be back to my normal self. This was not the case at all, my skin started going crazy and breaking out like I had never experienced. Before, the acne I was battling was little breakouts and some white heads mostly around my forehead with some on my cheeks. Now I was breaking out all over my face. My forehead, cheeks, mouth, chin, everywhere covered with pimples, white heads, black heads, and cists- which I hadn’t really experienced before. Come January and February 2020, my skin was so bad I would struggle to leave my apartment because I was so embarrassed for how bad my skin was. I didn’t want anyone to see me or my skin in the state it was. Being across the world this time, I didn’t necessarily know how to go about my skin this time around. This was like nothing I ever experienced, or ever thought I would experience. I would wake up every morning with five new zits, daily, feeling so hopeless as to when this nightmare would end. My mom and I did some research to try and find a new brand of skincare products to hopefully help subside my crazy breakouts. We found an Australian brand that I decided I might as well try since I had felt so helpless and just needed something to look forward to. Even though I had all the hope in the world of this regimen helping my skin, it didn’t and I was so hopeless. I was embarrassed at what I looked like and didn’t even want to look at myself in the mirror because I knew I would get even more upset. I had all the confidence in the world, and these pimples just absolutely crushed me. I cried a lot. I cried out of frustration, jealousy, hopelessness, anger, all of the above and more. I didn’t know what to do anymore. It was a real low for me and I wasn’t sure how to get out of it because more and more pimples and cists would appear every day. I came home from Australia right as everything was shutting down for the COVID pandemic. The pandemic gave me a chance to hide from everyone and everything because my skin still wasn’t getting better. My parents had no idea what to do or where it all came from because they had never really had acne growing up. I was so on top of my skincare regimens and took care of myself by exercising and eating well that everyone was always so shocked at the state of my skin. My mom and I are very holistic minded and decided to try and help my skincare issues with different supplements and vitamins to add to my daily supplement intake. We found a website with a doctor that has supplements to help people with hormonal acne get back to their “normal” and hopefully that will help the acne situation. I started taking turmeric, a natural anti-inflammatory, and milk thistle, a liver cleanse basically. I added these to my daily vitamins and hoped they would provide some sort of relief. I still take these vitamins daily even. I went back to see my dermatologist and she suggested going back on a birth control to see if that helped my skin. I quickly turned that down and needed another option. Her next option was another drug called Spirinolactone. This was an interesting suggestion because when you look it up, the drug is used to treat high blood pressure and heart failure, neither of which I have. But it was found to help treat hormonal acne as well, by affecting the hormones that overproduce oil on your skin, basically blocking them and hopefully curing your hormonal acne. I was a bit skeptical of this treatment plan but I was so upset about my skin, I wanted to try anything to help. After about 4 months on the medication I saw no improvements at all. No worse, which was good, but also no better at all. Yet again, another medication tried and failed for my acne. I really was in a low spot and didn’t know what to do at all. Because of COVID we had a shortened season and I went home in October 2020 again to San Diego. I was able to go see my dermatologist in person in November after a while away and this was the second time she brought up Accutane. Except this time, I was all ears. After exhausting every option and still needing some sort of cure for my skin, I was open to trying Accutane. My mom, was not as open about it. It wasn’t that she wanted to stop me from taking it, but she couldn’t get past the bad reputation it has. The most serious side effects you’re warned about are depression and suicidal thoughts, which was very dramatically exposed when a Congressman linked his kids suicide to their Accutane usage. My mom, being a parent, obviously had a lot of concern after a few clicks researching the medication when I told her I wanted to take it after my appointment. There are definitely horror stories with certain side effects linked with taking the drug, but there are an overwhelming amount of positive stories as well and I chose to focus on those experiences when I decided to take the steps to start Accutane in December 2020.
Accutane isn’t like any other prescription medication, there are a lot of steps, logistics, and plans that need to be in place for an individual to even get the medication. I didn’t care what I needed to do, all I wanted to know was the plan and I was going to make it happen. December 5th, 2020 I entered the IPLEDGE database to get on the waitlist for Accutane. In order to get your first months medication packet you first have to pass a pregnancy test, get on the waitlist for a month, pass another pregnancy test, and then you can qualify to pick up the medication from your prescriber. Before going to pick it up, you have to answer questions correctly as well, showing your knowledge of the drug and what you can and cannot do while taking it. The questions are all through your IPLEDGE account and once those are filled out correctly, you can go to your pharmacy, where the pharmacists must answer questions as well and then you can finally get your prescription filled. I remember my dermatologist saying that getting this medication was harder than getting a gun in the US. There were A LOT of hoops to jump through. Every month afterwards I had to get my blood drawn to check how the drug was affecting different parts of my body, pass a pregnancy test, answer the questions, and then I was able to get my next month of Accutane. All that along with monthly check ups with my dermatologist to keep track of my progress. January 5th 2021 I was finally able to start Accutane.
Month 1
Being an active person, a college athlete, and now a professional soccer player, I’ve put my body through a lot of hardship. I felt like I was well equipped physically to be able to deal with the toll that Accutane was about to be. We started off with 40 mg dose daily for my first month. Within the first week my skin started to “purge” or break out even more. It wasn’t too dramatic of a difference, but noticeable to me. One of the most prevalent side effects of Accutane is the fact that it completely dries out your whole body: skin, hair, lips, nose, joints, eyes, everything. I felt the dryness especially on my lips and eyes within a few days of starting and knew that it was no joke that I always needed to have chap stick and some sort of lotion with me. Anyone who knows me personally, knows that I always have water and chap stick with me and use them all the time. Because of this, I felt like I was almost the perfect candidate for Accutane because I was already accustomed to staying hydrated and keeping chap stick with me. Like I’ve said before, I love having a plan and routine. I wanted to stay ahead of this intense medication the best way and anyway that I could. I would drink a hydration packet, I used Liquid IV (from Costco), every morning to hydrate right after waking up to get a jump start on my hydration, not only for the Accutane but also for my busy and active workout schedule. We didn’t start preseason until towards the end of January so I had a bit of time to get comfortable with my routine before subjecting my body to my daily life as professional athlete as well. After the first two weeks I started to notice that my skin was starting to clear up a bit. Very minimal, but I did notice some progress and I was finally really hopeful that this could really work.
Month 2
February was the first month that I dealt with Preseason while on Accutane. It is really cold and dry in DC in the winter, very different from my year around sunny and nice weather in San Diego. The cold and dry air was a little rough on my skin, but VERY rough for my lips. I had to have chap stick right with me all the time. I didn’t have terrible side effects from month one so we decided to up my dose to the normal dose of 80 mg/day. I definitely noticed my lips being a little bit more dry, my skin was a bit dryer, and I didn’t sweat nearly as much as I usually would in training. I would still start each morning with my Hydration IV packet, and sometimes have one in the afternoon if I felt dehydrated at all. My athletic trainer at the Spirit was aware that I was on Accutane and carried a little packet of aquaphor with her if I ever needed it during a training session. Which I used basically every day during the session! Thank goodness for her. The second month was where I started to notice that my skin felt different. It was starting to get softer and noticeably smoother which made me really happy. Overall, month 2 was when I started to see some significant progress and I definitely felt some of the side effects like skin and lip dryness.
Month 3
In my check up with my dermatologist before I started my third month, we decided to stick with the same 80 mg/day dosage. For three weeks in March, my team did preseason in West Palm Beach, Florida so we could get away from the cold weather we were still experiencing in DC. This was a whole other animal to introduce to my Accutane journey. Accutane basically dries out your whole body, and makes your skin very, very sensitive to the sun. I didn’t have much of a problem dealing with the sun exposure up until this point because it had always been cold. Now with the heat, humidity, harder training sessions, and sun exposure all becoming a factor this third month was going to be a real test for me. I applied sun screen, had chap stick, and hydrated like crazy to try and stay ahead of the side effects. I even tried to train in a lightweight long sleeve shirt one day, but I quickly realized it was a bad idea and just stuck to being really good with my sunscreen. I think the fact that I was extremely proactive throughout this whole experience, really made it more bearable than anticipated. I wore zinc on my face and wore sunscreen on my whole body daily for training, and afterwards mostly hung out inside to limit my exposure. Even with zinc and insane amounts of sunscreen, I still would manage to get burned on my face. The burns weren’t crazy at all, but I just had a red hue to my skin basically our whole time in Florida. Also, because of the humidity I would drink at least two to three hydration packets per day to replenish everything I would lose in trainings. In general, I definitely felt the lip dryness still and would get sunburned fairly easily. I always had chap stick and sunscreen with me. I didn’t feel too different from month two to three physically, but I definitely noticed in this month that my skin was clearing dramatically. My skin was so soft and was basically clear with a few limited break outs. My parents met me in Florida during preseason, and it was the first time I had seen them in person since I left for preseason in January. I remember my mom saying how great my skin looked and how happy she was for me. She could tell in my demeanor that I was starting to feel like myself again and get some confidence back. Month three, although tough still, was when I started to have so much hope just because I was finally seeing results and able to tolerate the medication fairly well given the circumstances I was putting my body through.
Month 4
After conquering preseason in Florida while right in the middle of my Accutane experience, I was really confident in how my body was tolerating the medication and proud of what I had overcome thus far. My dermatologist and I decided that I could tolerate an even higher dose daily. I was bumped up to 100mg/day so I alternated between 80 mg on one day and then 120 mg the next day to hit an average of 100 mg over the month daily. Each time I would up my dose I could immediately feel my lips get dryer. The first week to 10 days of upping my dose I had a little dryness rash break out on my hands. I had a few spots on the back of my hands and the outside of my wrists that would get noticeably more dry and itchy in comparison to the rest of my body. I would just put on a little bit more lotion to those spots and as my body would adjust to the higher dose, the itchiness would go away. A new side effect was introduced to me towards the end of the month, joint pain. This was the side effect I was most worried for. I had a pretty good regimen in order to combat the dryness and dehydration that I was feeling daily up to this point and felt that I was handling everything fairly well. The joint pain didn’t necessarily present itself as pain, but more so stiffness. I would play in games or in trainings and I would feel like I had steel plates as hips. I struggled to run, strike a ball, or change direction efficiently and with power. I could get myself warmed up and I wouldn’t necessarily feel the stiffness but I definitely felt restricted and much less powerful in what my body could accomplish. This was especially frustrating because I move, kick, and run daily for my job. I felt like I kept a pretty good attitude about it because I had chosen to put my body through Accutane during season. I knew getting through this treatment would hopefully resolve my biggest insecurity in my skin. On the positive side of the month, my skin was clearing up so nicely and I was incredibly happy with how it was looking. I had maybe one or two pimples pop up around my period this month and even then they were small and easy to manage in comparison to what I have experienced in the past. Overall, in month four I still felt all the previous side effects with really dry lips, skin dryness, and dehydration, which I felt like throughout the whole course I had dealt with pretty well. And then, the introduction of the joint pain towards the end of the month definitely made it a bit more difficult.
Month 5
In my check-up prior to beginning my fifth month of Accutane, my dermatologist kind of alluded to the fact that I could potentially be done after this month if I didn’t have any new breakouts because I would have met the overall dosage she wanted me to reach. Hearing this from her was like music to my ears and that’s all I was focused on. In month five, I bumped up my daily amount to 120mg/ day and again the first week or so I developed to itchiness on the back of my hands and side of my wrists for only a few days. I also felt my lips get a little dryer, and the joint pain got a bit worse. I still felt like I had steel plates as hips and my knees would get extremely stiff as well after trainings or games. It definitely took a toll on me and I was exhausted most days from everything I was putting my body through. I remember telling myself almost every day that I could get through this for this last month and I would be okay afterwards. I stuck with this mentally through all the trainings and games we had. It also started to get really hot and humid in DC by this month so I had to be extra cautious of my water/electrolyte intake and sunscreen usage because I was now on a much higher dose than what I went through in Florida. I feel like I managed the sunscreen and water to combat dryness fairly well just because I was used to my regimen and it was working for me. My skin was completely clear too, I was so happy that no amount of joint pain or stiffness could break my mood because my skin looked great. I remember we had a long travel trip so I had to wear a mask for an extended period of time and I had a small white head pop up afterwards and I freaked out because I didn’t want to have to do another month just because of this small whitehead. It went away within a day or two and my skin was basically perfect again. I had my last check-up at the end of the month and my dermatologist said I could just finish up my pack of Accutane that I had and I would be done. It was the best news ever, I was so incredibly happy and proud of myself for what I had accomplished over the last 5-6 months. My parents came out for a game and they were with me when I finished my last pills pack, we went out and celebrated for dinner and I was on cloud nine. My skin looked amazing, my confidence was back, I was with my parents, everything seemed to finally be falling into place and I was getting back to myself. I was so happy.
I’ve been done with Accutane now two weeks and I still feel great. I had one pimple pop up recently around my period, and it has gone away really quickly. I still overanalyze every bump and mark on my skin, but I definitely have a much healthier relationship with how I feel about myself when I do notice those things. I feel so much more confident in who I am and I really do love my skin. I am so incredibly proud of myself for going through this almost decade-long journey to get to this point, but I think I’ve really grown as an individual and accept myself a lot more for everything that I am because of it.
It’s been a few months now that I have been off acutance and I am still so happy. I have a few small pimples pop up around my period typically, but they go away within a day or so and my skin is back to being soft and clear. I’ve stuck with a pretty consistent regimen of skincare products since I stopped Accutane and I definitely have loved how my skin has looked with these products. Every morning I have continued to use Cetaphil basic face wash, a witch hazel gentle spray toner, vitamin C serum, Hyaluronic Acid, Cetaphil face lotion, and sunscreen. Nightly I use the same face wash, lotion, and toner, Hyaluronic Acid, and add a retinol serum. Every few days Ill exfoliate my skin and use some sort of face mask, but for the most part I just stick with the same daily regimen. I have been so happy with my results thus far on Accutane and I still shock myself looking in the mirror and seeing beautiful, glowing skin. So far so good though!
Growing up, I really felt like saying you were on Accutane, or even thinking about it was like a curse word and wasn’t really something that people wanted to talk about. I get it for sure, but I am just so proud of myself for finally taking this step and overcoming my biggest insecurity that I don’t care who knows. I’ve opened up to a lot of people about my journey and had an overwhelming amount of love shown as well as people saying they either had already taken Accutane, they were starting it soon, or thinking about starting. I was really amazed at how many people I knew that had also gone through Accutane or were thinking about it, and I was so happy for them to also feel this new sense of confidence in themselves and their skin soon. I don’t mean to glamorize Accutane and everything that it is, because it is an insanely intense and severe drug with major commitment needed to get through it. It was NOT glamorous at all. It was grueling, tough, long, hard, difficult, but worth it. To be clear, I don’t think people should jump straight to Accutane at the sight of a few pimples in your teenage years. There are PLENTY of other, safer options to go through first with your dermatologist and gynecologist before getting to Accutane. And honestly your dermatologist probably wouldn’t prescribe it to you unless you had exhausted all other options as well. But, I do think if you were at the point I was at, it is SO worth it. I made a plan, stuck to it, and came out better for myself only and no one else. I think having that plan made all the difference in the world too. I know I keep saying it, but I’m just so much happier now and more myself than I’ve been in a very long time. Although it was extremely difficult, I am so grateful to have finally taken that step, and it was so worth it.
Some tips:
Overall, everyone’s experience is really different and it’s up to you to decide what you can and cannot handle! I think being proactive and taking steps to combat the severe side effects of the powerful drug was something that really helped me get through the grueling 5-6 months on the medication.