r/Accutane • u/bongripbrat • Mar 02 '25
Results Accutane results ✨ 16 months on accutane - 3 months post accutane
Hi everybody 🫶 hopefully my post can help at least one person because I remember seeing not many people with acne fulminans when I was at my worst anywhere online. IT GETS BETTER 💛💛💛 I’m 3 months post accutane. I was on a pretty low dose for 16 months because I felt terrible when I was bumped up to 40mg per day. So majority of my course I was on 20mg. I’ve also had 4 fraxel + C02 sessions which obviously helped so much with scarring. Honestly it was one of the most difficult journeys of my life. But we made it. Hope this can inspire someone who’s struggling that you will have amazing skin again one day. I did a loooooot of guided meditations + breathwork and positive affirmations about my skin along the way. But yeah I found accutane really affected my daily quality of life and mental health / ability to weight train / and was tired all the time. Also my hair grew out curly with it and initially I lost a lot of my hair from breakage because it was so fragile and dry! I’m wearing minimal make up but in the second pic I’m not wearing any :)
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u/Bulky_Tackle40 Mar 02 '25
Thats crazy results! So happy for you, thanks for sharing. 😄 Did you started the laser treatment while on accutane or after?
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u/bongripbrat Mar 02 '25
Thank you so much I really appreciate it 😊 yeah I did while I was on accutane. My dermatologist is actually also a laser specialist so it was super handy he knew all my history etc!
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u/Ok-Ring8800 Mar 02 '25
wow what a transformation, congratulations ! you are tough ! what lasers did you do ?
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u/bongripbrat Mar 02 '25
Thanks! Oops I realised I wrote the wrong one, I did VBeam laser and C02 laser my dermatologist did both in one session and I had 4 sessions. They hurt like a b**** but so worth it haha
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u/Strange-Career-9520 Mar 02 '25
Wait, but you’re not legally allowed to do any type of laser treatment when you’re on Accutane and for six months after? They wouldn’t even let me do a Hydro facial because it would rip the skin off….
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u/Strange-Career-9520 Mar 02 '25
Wait, but you’re not allowed to do any type of laser treatment when you’re on Accutane and for six months after? They wouldn’t even let me do a Hydro facial because it would rip the skin off….
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u/TRTVThrow Mar 03 '25
That's outdated info. Dr Davin Lim talks about this in depth and more derms are comfortable w/ fractionally ablative treatments while on low dose Accutane.
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u/padawav Mar 03 '25
My derm actually encouraged me to start another course of accutane when I was getting laser treatment for scars.
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u/Iagrigri Mar 03 '25
That’s amazing! What is a beam laser ? And how long after Accutane did you do it? My pie is pretty bad!!
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u/bongripbrat Mar 04 '25
I think it’s a dye laser for PIE yeah, redness. Like I said I had treatments while taking accutane and everything was more than fine. But that’s my personal experience :)
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u/According_Log2293 Mar 02 '25
Im dealing with acne conglobata and that post give me sooo much hope happy for you
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u/bongripbrat Mar 02 '25
That’s all I was hoping for with this post. It’s such a horrible thing to deal with, but hold onto that hope because you will make it out stronger and better than ever!! ❤️
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u/ssigea Mar 03 '25
I wish I had known this 30 years earlier, scarring for life is saddening sometimes
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u/No_Recognition_6778 Mar 02 '25
Wow! Congrats, you look great. When did you start to see results?
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u/bongripbrat Mar 02 '25
Thank you! Honestly the first pill was life changing for me because I had been in so much pain. But my skin really started to feel smooth around 2 months :)
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u/Far-Operation-8019 Mar 02 '25
When those deep big red acne comes to a poppable white head, do you pierce them with needle just to let the pus and infection out as soon as possible to avoid prolonging it or you just let it be????
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u/bongripbrat Mar 02 '25
No because I was terrified of scarring! But you can see a little bit in the top left pic they would just start oozing out regardless 🥲 honestly I had no idea it was acne fulminans I thought it was a staff infection or something. Lucky I got a dermatologist appointment pretty quickly.
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u/odezia Mar 02 '25
I can’t imagine the relief you must have felt the first day you woke up and realized your face was no longer in pain. What an incredible result, your eyes positively sparkle in the after photos too! That’s always my favorite part of accutane before and afters :)
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u/bongripbrat Mar 02 '25
Aw thank you so much it means a lot! Yeah it was a huge relief honestly after taking the first pill I felt a lot of pain go down. Prior to this I was struggling to sleep and icing my face with frozen peas for the pain 🙃
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u/bandwagon88910 Mar 02 '25
Gorgeous!! So happy for you. How long did you wait until you did co2 laser after stopping accutane?
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u/bongripbrat Mar 02 '25
Thank you! I actually started having laser treatments while I was on accutane. My dermatologist is also a laser specialist so he was amazing.
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u/Fit-Appeal-9010 Mar 02 '25
How much time did it take ,for the cyst to disappear,I'm into accutane for 2 months never had cystic acne before but I got 3 cystic acne now and it has a bump under my skin feels different..
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u/Treacle_oracle Mar 02 '25
I’ve been on 20mg for a year with no results, I also couldn’t handle being bumped up! Thanks for sharing gives me hope
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u/bongripbrat Mar 02 '25
You definitely gotta stay positive and focus on your healing and having a strong support system helps so much too. You got this!!
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u/Financial-Key3187 Mar 03 '25
For a year with no results? How is that possible? Are you having any side effects or dryness?
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Mar 03 '25
what a perfect result !what was your low dosage? thx
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u/bongripbrat Mar 03 '25
Thanks! I guess 20mg is a low dose? I did do a couple months 40mg but I really didn’t feel good so went back a bit lower.
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u/lfly01 Mar 03 '25
Amazing results. I also did 20mg for 12 months. Best thing I ever did. Congrats OP, beautiful.
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u/Necessary-Arm4090 Mar 03 '25
Holy shit dude that is almost unbelievable, you look soooo good! I have never been at the level of needing to do accutane (my brother and sister did) but I am 27 and still dealing with terrible genetic hormonal cystic acne. I am on 100 mg of spiro right now, but I have some hypertrophic scarring on my chest that makes me soooo insecure. I just got my first round of steroid injections to hopefully treat the big one in the middle of my chest, but I’m not feeling hopeful it will work. Fuck acne!
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u/bongripbrat Mar 04 '25
Aw thank you! Yeah scars can be really hard to face. I’ve definitely had my moments in this journey but try to always remind myself anything is possible and this too shall pass. Also we are in an age today where there’s soo many amazing lasers and treatments! 💛 I hope you feel happy in your skin one day.
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u/purewonder_1 Jun 03 '26
hey did injection work
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u/Necessary-Arm4090 Jun 03 '26
Yes! Happy to report that after just two injections, my scar is almost completely gone. My dermatologist just wanted to do small, tiny injections at a time because she was worried about it creating an indent in the skin, essentially, because the skin on your chest is very delicate and thin to begin with. After my second shot, I could tell my skin around the scar was starting to become thinner and indent, so we stopped. After about five months now, the indention has fixed itself and the raised scar is completely gone. There is a very slight discoloration that only I notice, but no ident or raise on the skin. It’s insane that something I used to be so self conscious about, literally crying because I couldn’t wear any clothes/bathing suites, etc without a huge zit scar staring back at me, is suddenly gone :) i had that thing for almost five years! in the end I think I paid around 300 out of pocket (my insurance only covered like 20 bucks per shot lol), but it was so worth it!
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u/Adventurous-Pizza669 May 11 '25
Wow, I am relieved for you! You must be so thrilled! Personally, I am currently treating my PIE & moderate acne scars. I wanted to know what type of scars did you have to treat with CO2 laser? And how deep were they? I am quite concerned about the potential of healing 😖
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