All in the name of beauty – is it worth it?

Three months ago I started taking Oratane, the generic of Roacutane. My doctor was reluctant to put me on it but after much persuasion and a liver test she relented. I don’t have awful skin but I am tired of random break outs at the age of 35. As far as I am concerned, they are for teenagers and I actually had better skin as a teenager.

Once I had my prescription, I started researching the medication – not my usual because I usually research everything beforehand. I wasn’t very happy about what I read. I had been told not to get pregnant, go in the sun and that I would get dry skin. What I read was so much worse. Sure, there was the pregnancy, sun and dry skin warning but along with that there is the possibility of nose bleeds, headaches, peeling palms, dizziness and that they may make you unhappy or depressed. Regardless, I decided to take them because it was only for 3 months. 

I also discovered that I had to really cut down the amount of alcohol I drank. I don’t drink huge amounts all week long, but after a weekend where I'd had a couple drinks, I got pains in my liver (which is surprisingly big and right under your ribs – thanks Google!), so that was the only sign I needed. I hadn’t pieced together that the liver test I'd had before I got the prescription meant something.

The first two weeks were fine. My lips got a bit dry but that was it. After two weeks, I started getting dry patches on my face. I started showering with baby oil and aqueous cream. The dry Joburg winter certainly didn’t help either!

The next few weeks were still bearable though my skin did become very sensitive to anything but aqueous cream. I had to use it as moisturiser because my usual one made my skin burn and left red marks as a result. Six weeks in, the daily nosebleeds started.

The last month was the deal breaker for me. I started feeling 'unhappy' despite the (herbal) happy pills I take. I just thought it was a bit of a slump, an end of year thing. Unfortunately it was not so. The 'unhappiness' they has warned about was kicking my ass!! I became super-sensitive, could cry at the drop of a hat and started thinking very dark thoughts. I over analysed anything anyone said to me (obviously with a very negative slant),  took everything as a personal attack and if someone turned me down, I took it as them saying they wanted nothing to do with me.

Living alone, I often found myself sitting on the couch wondering about why my life was so terrible, what contribution I actually made to the world and what the actual point of life really was. I decided that if I didn't have parents, I would've checked out (I've seen the effect suicide has on a family and wouldn't do that to mine).

I didn’t feel like I could talk to anyone about it, that they'd say I was imagining it, overreacting or being a drama queen. After all, so many people take it and feel perfectly normal!

Not good!!

I spent a month feeling like I was living in the middle of a thick, dark black cloud from which there was no escape. It sucked me down and smothered me. To top it all off, my right arm got super painfully itchy. So itchy that it would wake me up in the middle of the night and end with me in tears of frustration and trying not to scratch holes in my arm (I was not very successful at that). I was ready to literally peel my skin off! I tried baby oil, three different creams and eventually decided to take 2 Celestamines – they would either stop the itching or knock me out, they knocked me out…  

I tried to hold it together, tried to give myself pep talks to snap out of it, work out harder at the gym to get the endorphins going, take extra happy pills but it didn’t help. I felt like I was losing myself and my grip on reality and who I was. After another terrible Friday evening at home that ended in sobs, I forgot to take my pill on the Saturday morning. When I realised by the afternoon, I was already feeling a tiny bit better. So I made the decision to stop. I only had one week left but made the decision that my sanity was just not worth it! I could take a breakout once in a while, but I could not take the consequences if I carried on taking the pills.  

Every day I felt better and within 3 days I felt like I was back to normal. I was smiling, laughing and enjoying what I was doing. I have not shed a tear since. I have finally clawed my way out of that terrible black cloud into the sunshine. I even hear bluebirds tweeting – or would if I was in a Disney movie.

I know a lot of people who have been on Roacutane with varying side effects. My brother took 3 times what I took in high school and seemed pretty normal to me, he just didn’t go in the sun. Other friends have taken it a few times and have nothing bad to say about it – though one did end up with permanent blemishes as a result of spending time in the sun.

The one thing I can say is that I'm glad I never took it as a teenager because I never would've made it out alive – the hidden side of my teenage years were not easy for me. I don’t know how some people manage to take it for long periods.

At the end of all of this, I have decided that a perfect complexion is not worth it, if this is what I have to go through. I would rather keep doing my sneaky little blemish cover ups and keep my sanity and my life.