Week 1: iPledge

Accutane must be the most annoying medication to be on.  I'm not talking about the side effects, those are quite annoying.  Even getting it as a female is the most drawn out process.

In order to get on Accutane as a female, you have to prove you're not pregnant.  I can understand this part, because the drug can cause severe birth defects that no one wants to deal with.  The way they go about 'insuring' you're not pregnant and that you don't get pregnant is pretty infuriating.  

It's akin to those silly purity balls, but instead of 'until you get married' it's 'until you quit taking Accutane'

So, in order to get on Accutane as a female, you have to make an appointment just to take a pregnancy test, and then wait for a exactly 30 days to come back to the doctor. They give you this iPledge booklet that tells you all the side effects, birth defects, and all various types of contraceptives you can use while taking Accutane.

When you come back, you take another pregnancy test, a blood test, and your Dr. gives you a prescription.  But wait!  You're not done yet!  In order to pick up the script, you have to first go online and answer some questions about how not to get pregnant.  Your answers have to match what your doctor put in or... I'm actually not sure what happens, but you probably have to wait another month or some stupid thing like that.  So if your doc put in that you're using an IUD and male latex condoms like they did for me (yes, they ask you your preferences in birth control at the dermatologist's), and you accidentally put the wrong ones in, you can't get your script.  They ask you various other questions that should be common sense if you had 9th grade health class. You have to get them all right

So, I was a week late getting my prescription because they couldn't prescribe it to me until two days after my appointment.  Then the only pharmacy that my insurance covers had to order it.. but they actually forgot to order it until the next Monday.  I finally got it last Wednesday the 17th.

This is how the pills are packaged.  As if you could go through all of that and still need some kind of clip art to cement it in your mind.  I just peeled all of them at once and put all the pills into an old bottle.  I kinda want to take these tabs and make some necklaces out of them or something.  

So, I've been on Accutane only a week and I can already feel it.  I'm taking 40mg twice a day.  My skin is so dry and irritated.  It's flaking all over and I'm breaking out more than I was.  I guess the Accutane is pushing the nasty stuff the the surface already.  I usually don't get those big deep pimples, but I have like three of them between my eyebrows right now.  It didn't seem to work this fast last time.

My camera makes my face look less red, but you can see it is worse than it was when I started.  I really hope the soreness settles down because it really is painful.  It's only the first week!

One week down, roughly 24 more to go.

Merry Christmas everyone!