Accutane Long Term Side Effects (Page 66)

I have a son that took accutane 60 mg a day for six months in a row three years ago. Now after many trips to doctors over strange medical problems, it seems accuatne is the culprit medication that has caused servere joint and muscle pain, severe dry lips, redness in face, eye infections of own immune system attacking itself, systems of osteoarthritis in both shoulders, both wrist and right hand, blood in stool, possible hair loss, abnormal liver function test results in AST and ALT. My son went from being a high school football and track athlete while taking this medication three years ago to someone that is in constant pain just washing a car. After I have researched this drug extensively, I can't believe that the FDA allows this drug originally made for cancer patients to be marketed for teenagers with acne. All one has to do is look online what vitamin A overdose does to someone and then you have the results of what this medication has done to my son. This drug needs to be taken off them market ASAP and the drug companies that make it need to compensate all teenagers that they have possible ruined their future. Shame on them! What is going on here?

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John,
Thank you for your post. Wishing you the best!!
Scott

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I have 6 days started Roaccutane and now I have painful stomach I'm thinking I should stop it after reading the side effects all the sad news people said above! What should I do?

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Get off now please please please. You will regret it! There's other ways for curing acne. Trust me, the risk is not worth the reward. Help us redeem ourselves by saving you.

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To Pinkie:
STOP TAKING ACCUTANE!!! I took it 30 years ago and still suffer from Gastro-Intestinal problems. It did not cure my acne and has caused me so many problems.
Do not cause yourself needless suffering for the remainder of your life!!

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PLEASE STOP TAKING IT ,TRUST ME !

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Hello everyone. After some research, I have found one reason for accutane causing fatigue, impotence, depression, and loss of overall well-being for men. Through studies, accutane has been proven to inhibit the enzyme 5AR which reduces testosterone to DHT, a much more potent androgen for the male body. The only place where testosterone affects the male body is the muscoskeletal system. Of course testosterone is needed in order to create DHT, but DHT is much more important for every other male quality, including hair, body hair, sexual and reproductive systems, and sebum oil production. Thus by inhibiting 5AR, DHT decreases in the body, therefore highly reducing acne in males. You may be saying, ok well this guy had too high of levels of testosterone and DHT to start with, so now they must be at normal levels, right? Well for many men, they're bodies were not meant for these lowered levels so early in life, resulting in the aforementioned problems. Unfortunately, 5AR is permentantly inhibited to the extent of the treatment of the accutane a man had. This affect may lead to hypogonadism in many men resulting in the fatigue, impotence, depression, lack of emotion, lack of motivation, anxiety, depressive spells, and loss of body hair. I would highly recommend any man feeling these symptoms go to an endocrinologist and get their DHT and testosterone levels checked. Speaking from experience, I am not even 20 and now have the levels of a man in his 70s. Even if you are labeled "in range" you probably are not in range for a man your age, as the range scale goes from ages 18 to 80. I am not a doctor or scientist but it is all starting to make sense. Accutane ages your body and systems fast. Men who have taken propecia, an anti balding drug which also inhibits 5AR have a website and many forums complaining of the same permanent symptoms many male accutane sufferers have. One more thing before I finish this post is I hate when people say oh your cognitive function isn't impaired, look at all you have researched and figured out. I wish those people could experience one day with the long term effects accutane has caused so they can understand. I remember how I used to feel. The only reason I move on is that I believe that God did this to me so that I would finally believe in his teachings and repent. I suggest many people look to Jesus for answers. Bless everyone that has suffered. It's not your fault that this has happened to you or a loved one.

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DHT is dihyrdotestosterone btw. Also, studies have proven that accutane changes brain chemistry, just another reason for the long term cognitive impairment and depression. Can't believe it was originally a chemo drug for brain cancer. If only I was older than 14 and had an iPhone or laptop before signing the papers to take this med..

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Hi. I was amazed to find your post that you made on the forum on July 17. I couldn't believe what I was reading. In the Daily Mail there was this article dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2367075/Healthy-footballer-James-Sillcock-26-taking-acne-drug-RoAccutane-killed-mental-health-problems.html. Things suddenly started making sense to me. Since Wednesday I've been researching Roaccutane and it's been like finding out I have a terminal illness, or that something terrible happened to me and I didn't realise it, and that's why my life has been so awful for so many years. I am taking what you posted and what I have found to my doctor to be referred to an endocrinologist and find out exactly what is going on, and what else I have to come. I took it when I was 18, in 2002. I quickly became a shadow of my former self. Going from lively late teenager to a reclusive, anxious mess. Panic attacks, paranoia, psychosis, crippling anxiety, depression etc etc. This is always on my mind now and everything makes so much sense. I have been thinking for 10 years "Why do I feel like this? Why is everything so hard? Why do I just not care about anything, and why do I want to isolate myself? I don't know what to do. What are you going to do? Send me an email back, I would love to hear from you. Peter

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Hi everyone! I'm wondering -- these are all such touching stories but how do we get the world out further? How can we get people (parents, patients) to actually RESEARCH this drug, come to sites like this, etc. before taking the risk?

I have chosen not to take Accutane after reading these pages which confirmed what I already thought of it because of what happened to one of my best-friends after taking it. She had severe cystic acne and took a 6 month course of Accutane 2 years ago. She did NOT experience any side effects while she was on Accutane BUT since going off, she has experienced joint pain after exercise and her hands will go completely numb after prolonged use...and she's an illustration artist. She also used to be a crazy athletic person. She's only 23. Imagine not being able to do either of the things that make you you... I'm so scared for her and hope that this goes away but all the doctors can't figure out what is wrong with her suddenly numb hand. Sudden numbness is listed as one of the possible long term side effects of Accutane. Connection? Yeah.

As for me, I had been suffering from SEVERE cystic acne all over my face since going off the pill a year ago. I'm talking like more severe than most of the images you get when you google "severe acne". I choose to treat it naturally after reading this and I wanted to share what I did in case anyone else is considering Accutane out of desperation because having acne that bad was a pretty horrifying experience.

Background:
I am a 23-year-old Chinese-Canadian female. My acne was directly linked to going off the pill (try-cyclen lo) when I realized how much possible damage I was doing to my body ingesting sythetic hormones that cause cancer. My acne is a result of the hormonal imbalances of my body struggling to regulate itself after years on the pill.

Acne Severity:
I started getting 10 small pimples a week 2 months after going off the pill. I moved home to recover. It worsened and within a month, I was getting 6-7 pimples EVERYDAY and half of them were cystic. My biggest ones were the size of my pinky. They grew and grew and would not show signs of fading even with anti-biotics and dermatologist prescribed creams -- of which I tried 4 different ones. I considered Accutane but decided against it. This is what I did:

1. Herbal Medicine: I went to 3 traditional chinese medicine doctors.

The first one insisted that all acne has the same root cause -- "over-heating" of the body through long-term poor diet, stress, etc. If you do to a traditional Chinese doctor who says this... don't buy it. Everyone is different.

The second one graduated from U of T and looked about 30. He also said all acne was caused by the same root causes and offered a blanket treatment in the form of herbs pressed into pill form for convenience. Don't buy this either. Herbal chinese medicine is meant to be stewed and is not efficient pressed into a pill. Many graduates of herbal chinese medicine from Western Universities are also out for the money and inexperienced.

3. The third doctor I found was from Guang Dong region in China and a retired professor of traditional Chinese medicine specializing in skin-related conditions. Bingo! I was very lucky with him. He examined me and said that my acne was not a result of "over-heating" and bad diet but a hormonal inbalance (which was SO obvious to me but apparently not to the two doctors before him. Within ONE WEEK of drinking his treatment, literally half of my inflamed acne starting fading. Within 2 months, I stopped getting more than a couple small whiteheads a week.

2. Diet:
- No red meat (or at least, rarely) because it aggravates inflammation
- No additional sugar (I cheat with chocolate, I admit)
- No diary products
- No caffeine (when it was bad) because I was scared it would aggravate inflammation but this was just me not takign any chances -- I'm told this is fine
- No non-organic white meat (because hormone-fed animals pumped full of anti-biotics mess with your own hormone levels)
- All organic fruits/vegetables (to reduce the toxic load on my liver)
(Sometimes, I coudl not afford this so I would soak my veggies for 15 mins in baking soda water which is said to dissolve some of the residual pesticides on fruits/veggies)
- Avoiding things with high GI index (white bread, rice, etc) as they can aggravate inflammation
- no alcohol
- no smoking ANYTHING

This diet might look like sheer hell... that's because it was sheer hell! But what's one year in the grand scheme of your life?

3. Sleep
Getting 8 hours of sleep is so so so essential. I noticed that i would get breakouts during the weeks I was going to sleep past 2 and almost no breakouts otherwise.

It is 10 months later and I no longer follow this diet because most of my acne and its accompanying red marks have completely gone away. I still get some hormonal ones before my period but that is to be expected because my hormones are still imbalanced -- I will be able to tell when I'm stable when my period is regular again (it's not). Most teenage acne is from hormonal imbalances and WILL GO AWAY NATURALLY.

I recognize that condescending attitudes to alternative medicine exists and is widespread. I honestly used to scoff at it, too! I NEVER believed my parents when they told me it works (they are Western doctors themselves) because I never understood that medicine is itself only a cause-and-effect based science. We don't know why anything works -- only that it observes certain effects and we have recorded that. Traditional chinese medicine is the same thing -- only natural and has actually been observed and recorded over a much longer period of time -- over 500 years.

Medicine and poison are essentially two sides of the same coin. They both alter the body -- if the results are positive, it is called medicine. If negative, poison. After reading through all this... it seems like accutane is more of a poison. If if works for you, that is AMAZING and and wonderful. But if you don't want to to take the risk, I hope my story offers some alternatives!

If anyone wants to ask me more questions, I'm always read to help fellow acne-sufferers. God it's horrible, isn't it. My email is: {edited for privacy}

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My 17 year old son took Accutane from Sept 2012 until March 2013. He started out by taking one 40mg tablet a day. His acne was not improving, so after a couple of months he started taking two 40mg tablets a day. In May of 2013 he was diagnosed with both pancreatitis and ulcerative colitis. While taking this drug, he had blood drawn monthly. I was always told that his blood results were fine, and
that he could continue taking the Accutane for the full six months. I had no idea at the time, that side effect from this drug would show up after he had stopped taking it. I wish I would have found this website before allowing my son to take this. This drug NEEDS to be taken off the market.

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Yes, the brain impairment is devastating. I used to be very intelligent and I had a great memory. I could remember names and numbers like no other. I play guitar and could remember lots of songs. Now I can't do any of this. As mentioned before with my posts I am in recovery. I am currently restoring my immune system with a natural doctor as the guide. I'm afraid that after my immune system is restored that my brain will never recover. I can not give anyone medical advice, but I have been using choline to try to restore brain activity. Remember that 90% of neurotransmitters in the gut communicate with the brain. The body is one unit working together. Doctors only treat parts. Natural doctors seek to treat every body part... Liver, Pancreas, thyroid, brain, heart etc. Anyways, just giving my perspective on the brain damage side of accutane. Most people don't understand what it does and when you say brain damage they don't quite get it. They look at you and say well you seem fine. It's insulting to say the least, because we live in a dismissive society. Our dismissive society doesn't realize the pain we go through and hence our progression has become poor towards the truth about modern medicine. If you die from modern medicine you are a saint, but if you cure yourself you are a lunatic. Curing is no easy task and comes with suffering before recovery.

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Ok, 30 here. Took Accutane about a year ago for 3 weeks before I went to the ER for Vertigo and nausea. I stopped for fear of the continued sides... and 1 year later they are only compounding.
Added bad knee, back, neck, and muscle pain, Had to take a break from post Grad studies from head fog, ability to focus with my eyes is debilitated (vision is 20/20 but night vision is blurry and cannot quickly change view without delayed focus), daily fatigue and inability to exercise, GI system is messed up (investigating Gluten intolerance etc).
I went from 179 lbs and 29 yrs old in great shape to 150 lbs and cautious, feeling like i'm 70 in 1 years time.
As a premed student I am beyond myself that this drug is prescribed when None of the doctors know how it works or what side effects you will experience. If this is permanent I am running a research study on the effects of accutane on my specific DNA when I graduate.

Has ANYONE found any relief from ANY supplement in the meantime?

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Heres 277 FDA reports detailing bad reactions to where accutane was the suspected drug. These damages were largely permanent and sometimes life threatening.
I suspect that it weakens muscles and joints to the degree where it causes scoliosis (every case documented this).

fda-reports.com/accutane/reaction/scoliosis/page1.html

Seriously... how is this legal?

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I am struggling also, my stomach is a mess and has been since I was 19 years old when I started accutane. I have no pimples but I am sick to my stomach every day

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Hello to everyone that reads this post. I hope all of you will take to heart what I write and that it will help you not to make the same mistake that I did by taking the drug Accutane.

First of all, I am a 53 year old white male in relatively good overall health considering the plague of Accutane side effects that I deal with everyday. I don't remember the exact date I started my Accutane treatment but, I believe it was around 1983 or 1984. Previous to the Accutane, I had been on a regimen of various antibiotic drugs to treat my acne. Some of the drug names I remember were Sumycin, Minocin, Tetracyn and others. So many I can't recall all of them. I stayed on these antibiotics until the time that I experienced a 2 week period of diarrhea and lost 15 pds before it stopped. When I stopped taking the antibiotics the diarrhea went away. Let me say this before I go further. THE ANSWER TO OUR HEALTH ISSUES IS NOT FOUND IN A PILL!!! Medicines do help us when given with some common sense and wisdom but, they are not always the answer to our problem! Our society today has brain washed us to thinking that a pill holds the answer to all our ills. Anyway, to return to my previous thought, when I stopped the antibiotics my diarrhea cleared up. Antibiotics killed the good bacteria in my gut, along with the bad. That's why I developed the diarrhea. Ever since then I only take antibiotic drugs when I absolutely HAVE TOO! Doctors over-prescribe antibiotics all the time in our society, even for a common cold! This shouldn't be. After that episode I stopped taking the antibiotics. It was after this when I returned to my Dermatologist he suggested a brand new drug to me.... Accutane. He told me a little bit about the drug and the side effects I would experience, i.e. dry skin, chapped lips, etc. He also gave me a pamphlet about the drug. I remember reading it and seeing the before and after pictures of patients with SEVERE acne. Then I read the part that said one of the long term side effects might be bone problems. I didn't really heed that warning and sluffed it off. BIG MISTAKE!!! My acne was bad but, I would not have classified it as a severe case. It was more of just the typical teen acne that eventually clears up with time. However, since I was still in my early 20's I decided to take this miracle drug. I started the treatment and my skin did clear up but, then the short term side effects started, i.e. the dry skin, parched lips, red face, and for me, nose bleeds. If my memory serves me correctly the initial treatment was for 90 days but, I'm not positive on that point. Maybe it was 180 days. I can't recall for sure. I do remember at the end of the first treatment the side effects were overwhelming me. My doctor wanted to know if I wanted to continue the treatments and I did start them again but, stopped after only a couple of weeks. I am so glad that I didn't continue them because I'm sure now that the level of my health issues would have increased much more than they are now. One of the health issues that I have experienced since taking Accutane is gastrointestinal issues, i.e. IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome), lactose intolerance, acid reflux, hiatal hernia, malabsorption, excessive gas, foul smelling stools and I have trouble with spicy food. Prior to taking Accutane I could eat anything I wanted and was never bothered with ill effects. Since taking Accutane it has greatly restricted what I can eat! I also think that the antibiotics I took played a significant part with my digestive issues as well.
Here is what I remember experiencing in my life in the months after stopping the Accutane treatments. Initially I started having trouble sleeping/ resting. I never seemed to get a good nights sleep. It always felt like I had a pressure in my head behind my eyes (later on I equated this with bone/ neck problems I developed). When you don't sleep good you feel like crap the whole day. Then after several nights with no good sleep your body begins to suffer in other areas. Then depression started setting in because I didn't feel good, i.e. no good rest. Then it starts showing up in your face. You look in the mirror and get more depressed. The IBS was terrible at this time. My stomach gurgled constantly. I lost weight. Everything I ate seemed to disagree with my belly. I got more depressed. Friends and family commented about my weight loss. The pressure behind my eyes continued adding to my sleep problems. I developed white areas on the skin around my eyes. Made me look like a raccoon around the eyes. I still get these to this day. My life was a living hell from all these side effects. I became somewhat of a recluse. Go to work and come home. That was pretty much it for me. Didn't want to socialize with anyone other than my immediate family. Lost most of the time in my 20's to this hell from ACCUTANE! As time went on I learned to live with the issues that plagued me. Then when I got in my early 30's I started seeing a Chiropractor. That's when I found out about the bone issues. I have degenerative disc disease in my neck and which is also throughout my spine. In more recent times I have been seen by an Orthopedic Doctor. They have done several MRI's on me that show I have bone spurs in my neck and spinal column, along with the deteriation of my discs. The question is always posed to me..."how did you injure your neck?". And I always tell them, "I don't know". The only incident that I can ever remember that might answer their question was once I was weight training at the gym, doing bench presses and remember something popping in my neck while doing the press up. I didn't have any pain with it but, just remember that "pop". And that incident happened while I was on the Accutane treatment.
So here is my list of problems that I developed as a result of Accutane: various gastrointestinal issues, weight loss, sleeplessness, anxiety, depression (have seen a psychiatrist), bone issues, i.e. neck and spine problems including degenerative disc disease, bone spurs, arthritis in my spine, just to name a few. One other thing that happens to me now is I get red in the face at times for seems like no reason. It seems to be when I eat or drink certain things. Not sure but it seemed to start coming on me gradually over the years since taking the Accutane. I would have occassional episodes of turning red in the face following my Accutane treatment. It has never stopped and has become more frequent over the years.
If you are looking for a way to treat your acne today try going natural. Eliminate the junk food in your diet, i.e. sodas, candy, chips and all the other crap that is out there. Replace it with good wholesome foods and snacks. And stay away from the DRUGS!!!
A good way also that I have found in dealing with my health issues now is through regular exercise. It has been very beneficial in dealing with my bone issues. If I exercise regular I sleep better and feel better in general. When I don't I can definitely tell a difference. I continue to seek natural ways to deal with my problems and go to my chiropractor on a regular basis for adjustments to my neck and spine.

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I AM 47 YEAR OLD MAN AND WAS ON ACCUTANE AT AGE 18 FOR THREE MONTHS FOR ACNE.AS FAR AS THE ACNE IT WORKED.AT AGE 40 I WAS TOLD THAT I HAVE ANKYLOSING SPONDYLITIS WHICH IS FUSING MY SPINE TOGETHER.ALSO HAVE CHRONS DISEASE BOTH ARE AUTO IMMUNE DISORDERS.I WENT FROM A WORKOHOLIC TO DISABILITY !I TRULY BELIEVE ACCUTANE HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH THESE DISEASES.LIFE SUCKS FOR ME.I WISH I HAD BETTER THINGS TO TELL YOU BUT ALL I CAN SAY IS FING A GOOD RHUMITIODALOGIST. MAY GOD BE WITH YOU!

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Yes accutane causes all these diseases by weakening the immune system. It kills the bacteria and then whatever bacteria gets in after it kills it is in your system. Slowly this bacteria has taken over a percentage of your good bacteria and then you fall off the cliff. So what do you do? You go to a Doctor to get treatment, but wait it gets better... This doctor prescribes you prednisone and completely burns your organs and the bacteria that is left inside you further weakining your immune system. Now you have basically small reminints of pathogenic bacteria left along with yeast that grows at a faster rate than bacteria. The only way to combat this is to eat massive amounts of yogurt and avoid sugar wheat and gluten. Eat meat, eggs, and veggies no salt. Keep protein intake at a minimum. Make your own yogurt and ferment 24 hours. Over time your immune responses will disappear as the yogurt bacteria crowds out the pathogenic bacteria. The yogurt may make you violently ill at first, but that's because it's crowding out the bad bacteria. So there you have it. The answer to your problems. I'm in Houston and will help anybody that needs help. What you need is patience. Patience is hard because our neurotransmitters in our brain are shared by our gut... this is why crazy people are crazy they have bad bacteria that controls their thought processes. Learn to cure yourself and never accept the mainstream doctors lies. They will tell you how smart they are, but they know nothing except here take this pill. Don't accept their con games. Live in truth and see the light by researching what other countries are doing. The word quack is a word of big pharma set to control you. Now I am done. Good luck to everyone.

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what was the drink trearment dr. guang dong gave you to drink

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accutane causes testicular atropy (shrinkage in dogs). It wouldn't surprise me if it did the same in humans.

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Hello. I understand. Interesting your post because my hands and feet are smaller then my dad (I am taller then my dad) and smaller then my brother. This means I should have grown more. I took accutane when I just turning 17. During chemistry (sophomore year) I know my hands were fairly large (relative to the other kids in the class). Now they are not. Something stopped my growth at the beginning of my senior year. I should be 5 9 and am 5 7 (thanks to accutane). But there are other problems.

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