Week NINE!

Good evening fellow tane-ers!

I did my monthly blood work Tuesday morning.  They drew blood from a different spot than normal and it left my arm a little sore.  Weird!  Got the call from the doc the next day.  Cholesterol and triglycerides are still just a bit high, but are leveled off, and my white blood cell count is still a little low.  I know Accutane is supposed to leave you a bit lethargic, and I don't know if the meds themselves are causing thing the low blood cell count or if they're low on top of that, but that has to be why I'm so tired all the time.  I have absolutely no energy or motivation to do anything except get through work, and go home and chill on the couch.

Last week has to be the WORST so far with chapped lips.  They've been peeling so bad!  And I can not keep a thing of chap stick to save my life.  I always have it at work.  Some how leave it there, come in the next day, and boom, gone.  Fine one that I lost a week ago (usually in my laundry), use it for a day, and gone again!  These past 2 months I've probably bought 3 chap sticks, and had 3 or 4 at home that I've had already or some sort of lip salve from a birch box, and now they're all missing.  I haven't had one in about 4 days and I'm dying!  But I then have no energy to stop at the store to buy a new one.  Woe is me.

I go to NY at the end of this week.  Hoping the change of pace perks me up, gets the ball rolling again on the physical activity after all the walking around we'll do.

Oh my, and I can not wait to be able to do some sort of hair removal once this course is done!  I am a brunette with thick hair, I am naturally going to have some unwanted facial hair and plucking is just awful.

Here are my end of week 9 pictures.  No real changes in the past few weeks.  But I guess that's better than getting worse.  Haven't had an actual new pimple in well over a month!

Follow-up Friday!

One week down of the 30 mg dosage.  I'll have 3 more weeks of this before it doubles.  So here is how the last week has been!

As I said in the previous post, my skin started drying out almost immediately.  It hasn't gotten to bad, but the first couple of days putting make up looked kinda gross.  It all rubbed off and now it doesn't look so dry.  I've been moisturizing my face every time I take my make up.

On Tuesday I had really bad nausea.  I have no idea if this had anything to do with the medication, something I ate or didn't eat, or a combination of the two, but I woke up earlier than normal because of it.  While getting ready for work I had to keep sitting down by I felt so ick.  I ate my regular breakfast and went to work.  I stayed at work for a couple hours and came home.  After I ate some lunch and took a nap, I felt perfectly fine!

My lips finally started getting that dry, crackiness everyone talks about on Wednesday.  I've just been using my regular Chapstick that I have, not medicated stuff, and it seems to be helping.  If it gets worse, I'll look into getting some of the more recommended stuff that I've read about like Aquaphor and Cerave (spelling?)

My body doesn't seem to be drying out anywhere except my face which is nice.  I do feel kind of itchy on my legs and arms like it is drying out, but it doesn't look like it.  I've been lotioning up the bod too tho so it should help!

I wish I didn't know what some of the side effects are because now I'm like "is this from my meds or am I imagining it or has it always been like this?!"  For instance my doctor said I could have muscle aches and soreness as well as joint stiffness.  Well, I've been working out really hard and I'm sore, but am I EXTRA sore b/c of the meds or have I just pushed myself harder?  I also have always popped my hips and most of my joints.  They seem to not be popping as easily, is it the meds or just my head!  I also feel a little extra PMSy.  It's not my time to be PMSing, so is the Accutane affecting my moods?!  I'm sure its in my head!

THE PURGE.  I'm sure everyone who has stumbled across this has read a million other acne and accutane websites.  And everyone has read that pretty much everyone in their first few months breaks out worse before it gets better.  In this first week, my chin has exploded and it is painful!  I'm glad they haven't popped up other places that I normally don't break out and it has stayed on my chin, but it doesn't look good!  Also, some of the ones that I had that were seeming to go down, have gotten more painful to the touch.  Anyone else experience that?

Here are my Week 1 pictures:

My next topic of discussion will be diet and acne, coming up early next week!  I've read so much stuff and it has me so confused!