[quote]rsteward wrote:
"Just not sure if it is a healthy alternative to accutane or not. "
In my opinion accutane is a poison, and although I have pretty severe acne I will never use it. Take a look at the side effects of accutane. The sensitivity to light, and loss of hair seems pretty freakin unnatural to me and they are both VERY common side effects, not just “possibilities”.
Just because it is an approved drug doesn’t mean it is good for you, and besides I hear acne comes back after using accutane anyway. For me proper diet has seemed to help the most. Check out Loren Cordain’s work. Very insightful in regards to acne, and well a lot of other general health issues as well.[/quote]
I suffered from headaches, dizziness, lethargy, severely dried lips (they would split open and I’d be drooling blood), bloody noses, and had trouble sleeping while on it. I’ve since had acne come back in force, although nowhere near as bad as it was before the accutane (I had “Severe Nodular/Systic Acne” along with the more common types you see every day, after the accutane I no longer have the systs).
That said, even though it got rid of the fucking systic acne I’d never recommend anyone do accutane, I’d rather have the systs under my face than the sides from the medicine.
Yeah, just goes to show, it is good idea to do some research before using drugs that are said to do good things. Man though, it actually got rid of the cyst acne? I just can’t get past the fact that it is so poisonous. I sure hope that keeping up proper nutrition will help with that. I kind of felt they were here to stay. I’d imagine you still have scaring from them though?
[quote]rsteward wrote:
Yeah, just goes to show, it is good idea to do some research before using drugs that are said to do good things. Man though, it actually got rid of the cyst acne? I just can’t get past the fact that it is so poisonous. I sure hope that keeping up proper nutrition will help with that. I kind of felt they were here to stay. I’d imagine you still have scaring from them though?[/quote]
It got rid of them in one course of accutane, I get the occasional one now and then, usually on my upper back. I used to have 4-5 on my face at any given time, now they are months apart if they appear at all (probably less than 10 in the last 2 years). The scarring is still there on my face, my forehead and below my eyes especially.
When I was 12 I tried to dig one out from under my left eye with a pair of scissors and a needle (punctured it to open it up, then dug it out with the scissors), I succeeded but covered my bathroom counter in blood and probably scared my parents shitless. That scar is definitely there to stay.
100,000 IU is absurd. That’s not just sub-toxic, that’s very well toxic to some. I remember checking this out myself, quite a time ago. I did about 10,000 IU, and noticed a good improvement on my acne(wasn’t horrible to begin with), as well as a slightly more yellow shade to my skin(slightly tanned pink/white skinned male).
In all honesty, cutting out milk(exogenous est.), megadosing O-3’s, adding in some vitamin-A, and getting a good “cardio”(gf.) workout daily helped my blemishes enormously.
I’d reccomend starting around 10,000 IU’s, then upping it as necessary. But just watch around 100,000 IU, as that’s pushing your liver’s limits to the max.
I think the precautions around accutane are somewhat excessive. I don’t know about the rest of you guys but I had to have a certain card or doctors signature every time I picked up a prescription. Also my dermatologist mentioned that a politician’s son died while on accutane and he had a lot of regulations passed(dont know about accuracy). I took one cycle of accutane and it cleared up all major acne although i wouldn’t say my face is totally clear and I still have scaring on my back.I also have tried retina-micro and it worked fairly well. btw you may want to talk to a dermatologist because he may prescribe a topical and pill treatment that is less intense.
Hey all, I know this is an old thread but just reporting for those who are looking at whether or not this is a viable option for acne treatment. I’ve been running an experiment of my own with Vitamin A at 60,000 IU / per day split into two smaller doses (generic retinal in fish oil from GNC)I can say that after about a week and a half my skin is significantly smoother on the face with less inflamed acne.
Still have some benign looking whiteheads that can never seem to get rid of though (any suggestions would be great). But yea, it’s thread like these that make me respect T-Nation for it’s collection of ideas and ventures /sucking-up
Sorting out my diet, eating less bread, wheat and diary products has helped me. Although funnily enough, if I use any type of anti-acne product on my skin it always makes it worse so I have to wash carefully with water only.
What about high intake of foods like spinach. You can easily eat 10,000 iu a day with it. Does it work the same as supplementing? or does dietary vitamin A get selectively absorbed, where a multi forces it? I am not too familiar with exactly how it works.
This it not my first post but I lost my old Sn so had to make new one. I took 300,000 iu’s daily for 60 days and had no ill effects. Actually the only effect I had was all my acne completely went away never came back I have heard people taking that high of a dose up to 90 days. 200,000 to 300,000 ius daily of vitamin A is roughly the same as taking accutane. But if you go up that high you should prolly get a blood test.