Accutane And Infertility (Page 2)

I took accutane almost 14 years ago as a teenager. I am now a 32 year old woman who has just been diagnosed with infertility that they believe is linked to autoimmune issues. I truly believe that accutane is the cause of this; from the research that I have done it seems that accutane has been linked to other thyroid-related diseases, but that they have not yet been able to prove a link between accutane and infertility. There are, however, actually more people like me out there than I originally thought. Being diagnosed with ovarian dysfunction has been a horrific, horrific blow. And while there was plenty of information about accutane and birth defects, no one ever mentioned a possibility of future infertility. I was a teenager! This is a tragedy and I believe something should be done about it. If you too have been affected diagnosed with infertility and have taken accutane, please email me. There are plenty of suits against accutance. If there are enough of us, we can come together to do the medical research and get the help we now need.

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I took Accutane at age 16 and have been infertile ever since. Dr's have tried everything but still have no answers for me. I am now 45 and have been placed on Thyroid meds and Testosterone. I believe it was all because of accutane. I was the only one in my family to take it and I am the only one with these problems.

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I believe it does cause infertility. Think about it, It orginally is a Chemo drug from brain cancer. Still used in conjuction w/ other chemo drugs for rare and aggresive cancers.
I've read many articles lately on how young cancer pts have been perserving thier eggs and sperm as chemo can cause infertility.
I'd go into my story, but I have other issues outside of infertility due to Accupoision.

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My two sons have been diagnosed with unexplained infertility at ages 29 and 28. They asked the doctor about accutane and he said there was no research that showed a connection. However, in the lit that came with the prescription, it did mention it caused infertility in some dogs. We would definitely be into a class action suit. There was also a dermatologist in canada that noted on his blog that he had noticed a number of his patients who had previously taken accutane were now infertile (can't remember his name but an internet search on accutane and infertility will bring it up (which is how I found it). Fertility doctors don't know much about dermatology treatments. My two sons would be in for the class action.

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Is there anyone on this forum taking actions against the drug company of accutane

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I would like to know if any action is being taken as well. I took two rounds of accutane in my late teens and early 20's. I tried for over 15 years to have children and was unsuccessful. The reason PCOS and egg quality. Infertility drugs and IVF were unsuccessful. We finally adopted a beautiful baby boy, but the years of desperation and depression were to much. We should have been worned about the long term possible side affects, I for one would not have taken it had I known.

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I contacted an attorney and they said no class action yet with infertility. Someone should find a good attorney and press the issue. Also complaints to the FDA would help.

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Not to be rude, at all, but I'm 17 and I took the drug a few years ago and every time I got a months supply, there was the pharmacy info thing that's attached to the bag, the a yellow and white paper attached to the drug packet. And the white paper actually had like the chemistry of the drug, and the statistics of the side effects. One of them was sterility, you know like the percentage in a given number of patients that were human, not hamsters or dogs. I can't really sympathize seeing as I haven't tried to have any kids, but my cousin took it not long after it came out and she's been trying for 12 years to get pregnant and has had one miscarriage, and a failed In vitro fertilization attempt. I started researching this when all these law commercials came out, and I read somewhere that some of the problems were first initiated by too much vitamin A, and the chemical make up of Accutane is supposed to be like vitamin A. So as of late, my problems so far are not reproductive. My lips don't stay chapped like where you can see the dryness, but I feel the constant need to apply chapstick that tingles. I have a sunken vertebrate in my back and have that weird back pain you get when you straighten up from pushing a heavy box or washing your face. People should sue for the little side effects too, because they can lead to bigger problems. Exaggerated, but in the future my spine may start to deteriorate, a fragment might break off, then damage my spinal cord and paralyze me. In the 50's, Thalidomide was introduced to help curb morning sickness. And what's important to a pharmacist is the isomer structure of the drug. Drugs are enantiomers, which are isomers that are mirror images of one another. And an isomer is a compound that has the same number of atoms of the same elements, but are arranged differently. So anyway, one enantiomer of this drug relieved the morning sickness, the other did nothing but cause birth defects. And of course changing the arrangement for the bad one would create a whole new drug. So basically some women got lucky and had no problems, and some did, depending on which enatiomer was dominant. Drugs that have been on the market for years, like Paxil and stuff have come up with these lawsuits, so this proves that no matter how many years a drug has been out, you won't know what it can do, since they are highly sensitive to molecular and chemical changes. Maybe this is the case with Accutane. I've read where women and men have had no problems and swear up and down the drug is a miracle, then I go to sites like this and see these posts. I personally think there are too many women and men proclaiming problems to be making it up, so really the issue is finding what the trigger in the medication is. Believe it or not, the smallest finding could impact and reverse the diagnosis of many of ya'll. I'm not a doctor, although I plan to be one, but idk. Biology makes me think like this so really it could have caused a chemical reaction that can be fixed. I know anyone who is reading this is probably like what the world, but maybe this will inspire some questions that can lead to a solution. And sorry this is so long.

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When I took Accutane as a teenager 30yrs ago there were no known side effects except drying of the eyes and skin and lips. No precautions. Yet my whole life iv'e been infertile, 5yrs ago diagnosed with Thyroid problems. I believe all because of Accutane. I with I would of had the information out there for me to decide if I wanted to take the risk or not.

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I too took Accutane - 2 rounds of it in 1999-2000 when I was 23 yrs old. Now in my 30's I cannot conceive. We attempted in-vitro but found that my eggs were basically flat and "dried out" as per my ob-gyn/fertility specialist. Needless to say, no pregnancy. I believe that Accutane is the cause. I have persistant dry lips and dryness elsewhere and fungal infections that won't go away.

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I am a 32 y/o female with no medical problems and on no medication. I had been trying to get pregnant since I was 29 and over the last year have been working with a fertility specialist. I was told that for an unknown reason, I have low ovarian reserve with poor quality eggs. I now need to resort to IVF with donor eggs. Like the rest of the individuals that have made posts, I took Accutane in my mid 20's and did two cycles of it. I have no family history of infertility and have had no previous surgeries.....absolutely no explanation for my infertility. I don't know if there's a way to significantly prove that it's from Accutane, but I find it unusually coincidental that there are multiple other people out there with a similar situation.

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Unfortunately, we need more people and a lawyer who is willing to take this on. A lawyer could ask fertility clinics to survey their clients and find which ones had previously taken accutane. Without someone with the credentials to get the fertility clinics to cooperate we probably won't get enough people together for a class action suit against the makers of accutane.

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Hi,

I took accutane a little over a year ago and have since then tried five IVF cycles with poor egg quality resulting from each cycle. I'm only 26 years old, so the doctors are at a loss for a cause for my bad eggs. But basically, my husband and I have spent every last penny we could save over the past year and a half trying to conceive a child through fertility treatments. I'm wondering if this could be from the accutane.

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I am 33years old and have been trying to get pregnant for 3 years. For 1 year now, we have been trying fertility tretments (5 rounds of IUI and am currently in my second round of IVF). I've been told I have unexplained infertility. When I was 18, I took Accutane for 6 months and was only warned not to get pregnant for 1 year following treament (in fact, my derm would not give me the Accutane if I didn't go on the PILL). I was also diagnosed, in 2007, with Hyperthyroidism and had to have my thyroid removed through Radio-Iodine treatment (at which time I was told not to get pregnant for 6 months). My eggs don't seem to be any good. We harvest 8 or 9, and only 1 survives long enough to be implanted. Who knows if this round of IVF will work, but as many of you know, it is so hard, month after month, getting the news that you are not pregnant. Could all this be due to Accutane? It is so frustrating that no one knows!

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A year ago I was diagnosed with diminished ovarian reserve at 27 years old. I am currently pregnant with twins through IVF via egg donation. I couldn't be happier about finally being pregnant. But all the pain and hardship my husband and I have been through, not to mention the $20,000 it cost us for our cycle; is enough for me to really consider a legal consult. I also took Accutane when I was 17 years old for 4 months. The more of us that speak up about this, the better our chance to see something come from this. Is it just a coincidence that we're all experiencing infertility? Maybe, but I doubt it.

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I took Accutane for about 3 months at ages 13, 18, 23, and 30. At age 32, I was diagnosed with low ovarian reserve and am now undergoing my first IVF. I believe Accutane could be to blame. I have no other health problems and never had any side effects from Accutane, except when I took generic at age 30 and it caused severe dry eye--I eventually had to get Lasik because I could no longer wear contacts.

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Dear T,

If you go to the top of this page you will see a link Accutane forums. Someone there has posted her remarks on infertility. She may be able to answer some of your questions.

Best Wishes,

Scott

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I took accutane for 6 months in 1999. My husband and I have been ttc for over 8 years. During that time, I've had 3 miscarriages, 3 failed iui's and 4 failed ivf's. I've been told by 2 separate infertility specialists that I have poor egg quality. If i had known of this side effect, I would NEVER have taken accutane!

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I took Accutane in 2004. In 2007 I had a healthy pregnancy. We tried again in 2009 and conceived easily just as before, but at the 20 week ultrasound our daughter was diagnosed with a Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH). She was born in June 2010 and lived only 16 days. She had no syndrome associated with it and there is no family history of CDH. There is no known cause, but I recently read that in some cases it may be caused by damage to a gene. Even though her genetic tests came up normal, there may still be a chance that one of them was damaged. I can't help but wonder if this damage to my egg could have happened because of Accutane. Women are born with all the eggs they will ever have, we don't make new ones, so this drug could have affected the ones I have.

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I'm 47. Went on Accutane in my mid 20s prior to marriage. Have suffered IBS issues and other symptoms. Have not been able to have children although I hadn't been tested for infertility. I have wondered if it stems back to accutane.

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I also took Accutane in my mid-twenties and began trying to get pregnant at 33, and have been trying unsuccessfully for the past 7 years. The same as others have mentioned, I have tried many rounds of infertility treatments, including 4 rounds of IVF, all unsuccessful. Have been diagnosed with unspecified infertility. I also had the same problem that some others have noted, where I seemed to be producing many eggs but they were of low quality, and only a few were able to fertilize. I am the only person in my family to be diagnosed with infertility. I honestly never thought that it could be caused by Accutane, but now reading all of the stories that are so similar to mine it really makes sense. If this is indeed a side-effect of Accutane much more research needs to be done and hopefully keep this same thing from happening to others. I am definitely interested in contacting a lawyer about this - how is the best way to start?

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