A little background: I am a 24 year old girl who has been struggling with acne for over 10 years. That's right ladies and gentleman, I have had a pimple companion on my face, back, chest, arm or wherever ever since I can remember. Just as soon as I thought I was acne free, I would feel something creeping in on my forehead. Which really taught me to never celebrate early, for anything (including Lakers games, which increasingly annoys my boyfriend when I am saying "let's see, it's not over yet" when they have a 10 point lead with forty seconds left).
Anyways, like most people with this problem, I have tried everything. Every cream, every pill, ever zapper, every peel, every wash, every diet. Baby, I've even had needles stuck all over my body and drank a disgusting tea for a month just to be blemish free. So please, don't stop me halfway through my story and say "Oh, well my sister gave up chocolate and avocados and all of her pimples disappeared!" Shut up. That's not happening for me, so please keep your stupid advice to yourself. Stupid.
The last lovely option that I finally gave into was Accutane. Oh, you may have heard of it. It's a pill that was so dangerous just a few years ago that they stopped prescribing it so that it could be reformulated because it was causing so many horrific side effects. And it's also the only known cure fore acne. Cure!
I used Accutane for five months and was yanked off of it right before I was supposed to start my final month by a doctor who I don't regularly see (my regular doctor decided to pop out a baby halfway through my treatment. How dare she!). He freaked out when I told him I had some back pain and was always tired and told me that I shouldn't be on it and it's too dangerous. I walked out of the doctor's office that day, crying. Crying because I really thought this was my cure, my savior, my last hope! And here comes Dr. Handsome-know-it-all telling me I'm too good for this pill. I can do better. I don't need all it's abuse. But I can handle the abuse! I want it! We are meant to be together!
So it has been four months. Four months that I have been off of this pill, and guess what? All the acne is starting to come back. Because I didn't finish the course I was supposed to. And now, I'm going back to that sweet poison.
In all honesty and jokes aside, I am terrified. Being on Accutane really isn't fun. You feel tired, without appetite, your joints feel stiff and sore, you get weird white marks on your arms, you have to take a pregnancy and blood test every month just to stay on the medication, and all the chapstick in the world can't help the dryness your lips experience. Which especially sucks for a girl like me who has clown sized lips. Also, I know all of this is sounding incredibly sexy, so please try to contain yourself.
People reading this who have or haven't struggled with this problem might think that it isn't worth it. That the risks outweigh the benefits, and you might be right. I have read about a lot of people who really regret taking the drug. But I also know of a lot of people who have been very happy to take it and it has drastically improved their lives. Yes, their lives. I refuse to be one of those people where something about my image bothers me so much that I obsess over it, but I'm also not going be one to sit back and just bask in hopelessness and self-pity. And on those days where I feel super shitty and a touch of hopelessness does creep in, I just remind myself that even Beyonce gets acne from time to time. Meaning the queen of my universe and I share similar problems. And that tends to make me feel better.
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