Today I finished my first 10-pack of Accutane pills; only 13 more 10-packs to go! I accidentally liberated the pack of pills from it’s cardboard packaging the other day, which ended up being a blessing in disguise as it makes the pills significantly easier to remove from the blister pack. I have a lot to report on today, so let’s get to it.
FACE
My acne is clearing up, if ever so unnoticeably. I know it’s clearing up because I have fewer painful nodules, but I still have a nice crop of inflamed papules, a whole mess of little whiteheads, and a seemingly infinite number of clogged pores. Though I have fewer giant pimples, to the casual observer I think I might actually look worse than I did about a week ago due to the fact that the dryness of my skin makes camouflaging my acne and acne scars with makeup nearly impossible.
Let’s talk about makeup for a minute. I’m not really a makeup kind of person and only started wearing it about four years ago when my skin started acting up. For me, makeup means concealer and powder, and I am eagerly anticipating having my skin clear enough to not feel like I need to use makeup to make my face look even remotely normal. My concealer can’t blend in with skin that’s entirely devoid of moisture and is about ready to flake off my face; when I apply concealer to the areas that are flaky it just emphasizes the flakiness. Even the areas of my face that aren’t flaking are hard to deal with in terms of makeup since my skin is so dry that the concealer just looks chalky and weird. I realized today that I may have to ditch my makeup before my skin is relatively clear or normal looking simply because the naked pimples might actually look better than pimples attempting to hide under a veil of chalky, flaky makeupiness. Better, is, of course, a relative term here.
By the way, my lips are insanely dry. I’ve found that brushing them ever so gently with my electric Oral-B toothbrush is somewhat helpful for exfoliating the dry skin, but the effects of that only last a couple of hours. At that point, even with frequent lip balm applications, they’re all stiff and cracky feeling. This morning I felt my lips getting a little dry, but I decided to see how long I could go without feeling like I had to put lip balm on. Bad idea. I realized that I need to be more vigilant about lip balm applications; once the lips start getting dry there is no turning back–it’s like a slippery slope and at the bottom of the slope is nothing but pain and misery. Because of my negligence, a decent sized flake ended up peeling off my bottom lip today and left a bit of a raw spot (ouch!) so I’m going to fight the good fight in earnest tomorrow. My strategy will be to exfoliate with the electric toothbrush in the morning, apply lip balm immediately, and then work diligently to maintain the integrity of the protective lip balm coating. Hopefully, that’ll do it. I really prefer my lips without open wounds!
BODY
For as long as I can remember, I’d get the occasional painful pimple on my upper back, but my chest remained smooth and clear. However, over the past couple of months my chest has become populated by a colony of clogged pores accompanied by some tiny pimples; when I’d run my hand over my sternum I could feel all the little clogged pores like very rough sandpaper. Since beginning Accutane, my upper back has broken out more; I have several painful inflamed pimples now. My chest is clearing up, though. The clogged pores are disappearing and my skin is feeling smoother each day but I’m still getting some of the tiny pimples here and there. I expected the Accutane to cause an initial flare in the severity of my acne, so I’m not too worried about the flare up on my back–I’m glad that all the crap that’s in my skin is working its way out! I haven’t noticed too much of a difference in the skin on the rest of my body yet aside from my hands being a little drier than usual.
SCALP/HAIR
This is where most of the excitement has been over the past few days. I have got some serious dandruff. Serious. The other night I purchased a bottle of dandruff shampoo, which I tried for the first time this morning. I remained itch and flake free until about 11:30 AM. The itching is pretty mild but the the flaking…oh, the flaking. The flaking is insane. Even if I don’t scratch my head, simply running my hands through my hair causes huge flakes of skin to detach themselves from my scalp and nest in my hair. I’m a brunette, so the flakes are quite noticeable. When in the privacy of the restroom, I do what I can to shake them out (this involves flipping my head upside down and, well, shaking it), but they regenerate constantly so it’s impossible to stay on top of the problem. Though my scalp is really dry, my hair does not seem to be too affected yet. I’m a little paranoid about getting super dry hair since my hair is long, so I’ll be taking some precautions to try to keep it moisturized now that I have zero scalp oil to speak of. Pre-Accutane I washed my hair every other day; by the time I’d get to 48 hours post-shampoo I was oily and icky. I’m still on the 48-hour interval for hair-washing, but my hair was much less oily this morning than it would normally be two days after its last shampoo. I imagine I’ll end up stretching the hair-washing interval out to three, or (gasp!) maybe even four days.
SIDE EFFECTS
So far, none except for the dryness-related issues I’ve already mentioned. I have a gut feeling that it will stay this way, too 