I’ve been on the Accutane for a little over a week now.  It’s been an adjustment period.  The side affects are nothing that I haven’t dealt with before, but after two years, re-learning some of the affects have made for an awkward adjustment.

I knew that my skin was going to dry out, but I’d forgotten what a fight it was to stay moisturized throughout the day.  I’d also forgotten about the hair thinning.  I’m not going bald or anything, but running my hands through my hair in the shower I’m pulling angel-hair-pasta-thick strands of hair out.  But the worst is how dry my lips are.  I could deal with everything else without complaint if it weren’t for the fact that I could pull sheets of skin off of my lips. The last time I was on Accutane, it was the one thing I was looking forward to at the end of the six months of treatment.

I know that I made the right decision going back on Accutane.  I know that no matter how many different treatments I tried, the cysts were never going to go away.  But at the same time, in the darkest hour, when my face is raw, red, peeling, and I am paying $40 for the only moisturizer that even comes close to not making my skin feel like I’m being flayed, I wonder why the hell I did this to myself again.  The only comfort is that after this month, my dosage will go down, and hopefully this is the last time I’ll have to do this.

The end goal is the only thing that makes all this bullshit worth going through.