I'd spent 4 years trying various treatments my GP recommended that were having no effect at all. My mother used to spend hours trawling the internet looking for different treatments we could try, this is how we came across Roaccutane.
In all my life I have never met anyone who suffers from acne to the same degree as me or heard of anyone who had taken R. I'm actually surprised at how many forums there are dedicated to it on the internet beause until just over a year ago I knew nothing about it!
To be prescribed R you have to be recommended to a dermatologist by your GP, so the next day I booked an appointment to see my doctor who agreed that I had exhausted all other treatments (at this point I'd even been having microderm, laser and peels- which I'll talk about another time) and that this was my last option.
Your GP has to write a letter to a dermatologist giving them your medical history (regarding the treatments you have undergone for acne) and then they make an appointment for you, they have to agree that this is the final option. So I eventually got an appointment.... for 4 months later. I was miserable, I was finally going to get a treatment that I actually believed could work and I still had to wait so long for it to start. As you can imagine I was a bit impatient and wanted it over with!
Now I know everyone won't have the option to do this but my mother saw how depressed I was getting and she decided we should go private. 3 weeks later I was on my way to see a dermatologist at the Alexandra Hospital, Cheadle.
I can't comprehend how I felt walking into the hospital, I thought that was it; I'd get the tablets and I'd have clear beautiful skin!!
..... No.
Like I said, I didn't know what to expect because I didn't know of anyone who had ever taken it. Dr Lear, my dermatologist, explained all the side effects and the process to me and then sent me away to make an appointment for a months time. In order to take R you have to have blood tests every month to check that your cholesterol and liver function don't change, girls have to take the contraceptive pill and have monthly pregnancy tests done at your GP to make sure you don't get pregnant (R can severely damage the foetus) and it doesn't mater if you aren't sexually active; I wasn't.
I walked out of that hospital trying not to cry because I'd convinced myself that it would all happen so fast; I'd walk in and get the tablets there and then. Unfortunately acne treament is a long process, nothing happens overnight. Not even when your taking R, infact with R everything gets a lot worse before it gets better.
Anyway, I went home and cried. Then in that week I had my blood tests and started taking Dianette (contraceptive pill) and every day my mum would ring the hospital to see if anybody had cancelled their appointment and there was an earlier slot we could attend; there was!!!!
3 weeks later (instead of 4) we went back to the hospital; Dr Lear checked my blood test results, weighed me, and prescribed me a months worth of 20mg R (they can only prescribe a month at a time because you need to return monthly with a new set of blood tests).
That is how I started taking R, mostly thanks to my mother who I am unequivocally indebted to for evething she has done to help and support me.
If you're thinking about taking R or are about to, remember; it takes a long time but you have to peresevere because the results will be worth it!!!
I'll talk about the the side effects on a different post and if you have any questions regarding anything I wrote about let me know! And I'll also give a bit of a background history on my skin to make you feel a bit better about your own.
- Natalie
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