juicy,
i was on minocine before the accutane, and cleosin lotion, but they weren't doing much for me. i hafta say, seriously, the absolute worst thing that i did was to not call the derm's office when i started getting the bigguns. if i had addressed it three weeks sooner i could likely have saved myself a lot of pain, and the big hickey looking things on my jawline- so sexy! i should have spoken up, gotten them injected, gotten my dosages upped right away.
my opinion is that the lower dosage was just enough to freak my skin out w/out doing what it's supposed to. make sense? my skin didn't get any drier, i just got big cysts, and lots of them. i think that if i had gotten to a higher dose sooner it would have dried my skin out more effectively. this really has been a pain the the rear, but going in to have them injected regularly has been just what i needed. my reaction was so much worse from the 20mgs than from the 60mgs, and the 80mgs is kicking butt. but again, getting them injected kept it under control, as does the prednisone.
a lot of people use differin or retin-a micro while they're on the tane. i can't use that stuff, apparently i'm senstitive or something, but i tried to use differin a few years back and couldn't stand the itching- too intense. but if you're already using it with some success then you might continue w/it on the tane. have you already started taking accutane at the 20 mg dose? and the antibiotics too? that seems unusual to me, but i'm just a user of this stuff, no expert by any means.
btw- you have to stop the antibiotics (as i understand it) when you start the accutane if you're using bcp's, b/c it makes them less effective, w/the whole pregnancy thing. the initial breakout should be a real concern, but liek i said earlier, my reaction was NOT TYPICAL, it was VERY UNUSUAL!!!
the nurse had NEVER seen anything like it before, lucky me! most people start to clear up right away, just keep in mind!
and to answer your ?? about the cysts and their core, i have found the same thing to be true on the accutane, but it makes the skin so fragile that you don't want to be poking about too much or it will break and bleed. i have a hard time keeping my hands off, especially now that it's all flaky (never scrub w/a washcloth, btw, bloody mess, followed by scabby face will surely ensue!). i use those daily cleansing cloths by aveeno in the a.m. for that, really helps w/out the icky mess and terrible stinging pain and nasty scabs, as hot as those were!
it is weird tho, a little plug will just sorta pop outta there, the pain is instantly gone and the thing goes away in a day or two. sometimes i'll get a li'l itch on my face, scratch it, and scratch a plug off! go figure. i don't know what the he** is going on, but it does seem to be working, albeit rather slowly. sorry this is so long!
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