Okay, so technically today is the end of the first week as by now pill number 7 has worked its way through my system.

I thought I might go a little more into who I am and why I'm taking Accutane and have an update on the skin status since there has been a change since yesterday!

So, I'm 20 years old, I'll be 21 in november and I'm planning on attending University next fall (2006). Something which I've put off doing because I've been really unhappy with my appearance since high school, and I couldn't bear the thought of meeting new people and looking the way I did (bad skin and a less than perfect figure). This year though I've gotten in shape, lost 30 pounds, and all that was left to do was fix the skin problem, hence the accutane.

Hopefully I will only be on accutane for 4 months and be done in november so I will have adequate time for my skin to de-sensitize itself. I want to be able to go ahead and get a bit photo-resurfacing and some other laser treatments done to lessen the few scars I have (which I will elaborate on in a minute or two), and just give me that wonderful skin all 20 year old women should have.

Now, on to a skin update!

I'm pleased to report that I woke up this morning and the grimy feeling was pretty much gone. It was most unpleasant though. My skin was also... PIMPLE FREE. It was really strange to look in the mirror and not see one single red bump, though my skin is still land of the black heads (gross), they apparently will start to go away soon too. That also brings me back to the topic of scars, it's incredible, absolutely -incredible- how unnoticeable they are where there is nothing emphasizing them. I'm so excited for the end results, I'm just.. speechless.

My skin isn't really dry, it's not super oily though, I've been using reduced amounts of my proactiv cleanser to wash my face with, I really don't trust anything else. I'm just hoping it doesn't end up drying my skin out even more when the whole "dry skin" phase kicks in. I also hope it will help with the initial breakout which I have a feeling is coming this week.

I didn't feel anything this morning, but now I'm starting to feel a few bumps here and there that still aren't visible on my face, but I did get like two cyst type blemishes on my back yesterday, but this morning they were gone too.

So far the only real noticeable side effects are a really dry mouth and kind of dry lips (but not cracked lips yet). I also shaved my legs this morning and it felt kind of uncomfortable for some reason, so I used the cetaphil moisturizer I bought for my face (an "all over" body lotion that i thought would be good, but didn't read the packaging properly and it turns out it has oil in it) and used it on my legs and now they're feeling smooth and stuff, so hopefully that will keep my legs from drying out.

Well, that turned into a really long entry hehe. But that's what's happened so far and I'll have another update next week or earlier if something else happens and I get some more side effects :)