Posted by MB on January 12, 2002, at 11:06:31
In reply to Re: In the news: Fla suicide pilot was on accutane » adamie, posted by adamie on January 10, 2002, at 22:08:02
> with all the knowledge we have now about accutane I dont know how someone could actually take the dirty drug. It can cause perminant changes in one's brain, perminently damage your skin (sure acne can go away but your skin is more fragile and rough), change your hair, and various other things. The drug is disgustingly dangerous. It even severely weakens bones. An average dose of accutane is equal to taking 40 times the daily recommended amount of vitamin A which has been proven to cause severe mental problems. With such knowledge how dare anyone take a drug like this? I wish I knew about all this before I was urged to take the drug by my mom. One would have to be extremely shallow to be willing to suffer perminant brain damage and depression in exchange for clearing up their acne. be grateful for what you have. true mental illness is beyond devestating. I cant so much as lay in bed relaxed because the mind torture is always there. Accutane should be off the market.
No one explained the possibility of depression when I tried Accutane in the mid-eighties. They just said don't drink on it, don't get pregnant...which was easy since I was a boy (still male, just not a boy anymore < g >)...etc. I didn't know that it could cause depression. However, there is major depression, bipolar disorder, and many other mental illnesses that run in my family, so it's hard to say if the Accutane *caused* the psychiatric problems or if it merely coaxed a latent problem into presenting itself. Accutane has a nasty, nasty side effect profile, but I'm glad it was there for me. I developed cystic acne (more than 25 cysts at any one time) when I was in the sixth grade and it continued into my early 20s. It was so bad I had to go through three full Accutane treatments to get results, and even then, it didn't clear it up completely. I still have nightmares about it today: I go to the mirror and there's this horrible cystic acne, and I start picking at it and my face starts comming off. Maggots and worms crawl out from under my skin as I rip it off, and I just keep pulling and pulling until there's only a skull. I haven't had acne for ten years and I still dream about it...that's how traumatic it was for me. It was worse in middle and highschool when friends were dating and the possibility of a girl even looking at my disgusting pus-oozing face was a non-reality. I was so disgusted with myself I wouldn't go out of my room...just sit there in the dark so no one would have to look at me. I felt like the elephant man. So, I beg you to reconsider calling me and people like me "extremely shallow" for wanting relief from something that was torturing us...especially when we didn't know that depression could be a side effect.
poster:MB
thread:89565
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020110/msgs/89837.html