40 mg. of Accutane

This post is kind of late.  My pictures were taken at the month marker it was just hard for me to find a time to sit down and blog about my 40 mg. experience of Accutane. 

40 mg kicked my butt!  That is the nicest thing I can say about this increase of the medicine.  I suffered from fatigue, skin rashes, my skin also burns if certain perfumed items touch it, also cleaning products I now need to wear rubber gloves (I've never had sensitive skin before so it annoys me quite a bit), and joint/neck and back pain.  I am slowly seeing progress.  I am still struggling with my chest, back and the area on my neck right below my chin.  I also get cut really easily. 

I am trying not to get discouraged and my hope is to be able to wear a tube top this summer I know it may seem shallow but that is my goal. (I couldn't wear any of my cute ones last summer because my back was too badly broken out and I was embarassed).  I haven't seen huge progress but I have seen steady progress.  I just have to get it in my head that this is not an over night fix this is something that needs a little more time.  My Dr. says I should see major progress at 80 mg.  and I hope he is correct.  I am currently starting my 60 and my appointment to see if I move up to 80 is April 5th.  I'm more than ready for it.  I'm ready to see some major progress. 

Rash(all over arms):

Progress:

Hopefully every month continues to get better!



Accutane Month 2

I have been on Accutane for 2 months now.  My latest dose was bumped to 20 mg.  Overall physically I felt no change.  I am not depressed, or suicidal.  At the beginning/middle stages of this dose I became very disappointed.  I felt like I was showing no progress I had several pimples come up it was like my face was giving accutane and me the middle finger and saying "You'll never win."  This last week of the dose though I can see big changes and I am liking what I see.

This month was kind of messed up due to the lab goofing up and not doing the correct pregnancy test so it took nearly a week to get my results back so I had my medication later.  With this dose I have noticed more dryness and I have been getting dry skin "rashes" on my arms.  I am also loving the fact that I normally have really oily hair that has to be washed nearly everyday and I don't seem to have to wash it as often as I used to.  This saves me tons of time!

I received this month at 20 mg. blood work yesterday and my triglycerides were bumped up so I am taking 2 2000 mg. of fish oil now.  I think this elevation could even be due to the fact I had Golden Chick for lunch...probably not my smartest move. 

I am using Cerave hydrating wash 2 times a day
I am taking 200 mg of B6
1200 I.U. of Vitamin E  which will probably increase pretty quickly
1000 mg of fish oil soon to switch to 2000
For body wash I am using Cetaphil Antibacterial Bar (which I am not that thrilled about I love my BBW)

My doctor also told me that Dove is the worst body wash you can use because it is made with Lye.  He says that it is bad for non-accutane users but horrible for accutatne users. 

Here are my pictures from a month at 20 mg.  I can tell a big difference can you?

Accutane Month 1

I thought I would blog about my experience on Accutane.  I have taken this medication before but I don't really remember how it effected me.  I was in the 8th grade at the time and it messed with my triglyceride levels and put them through the roof so I was never on it for a long period. 

I started Accutane 1 month ago.  I have cystic acne I have tried every over the counter acne treatment you can think of and it still would not work (yes my face just laughed when I tried ProActiv although ProActiv made it less red!) 

My dermatologist before putting me on Accutane put me on a round of antibiotics to say that he had treated me with something else before resorting to Accutane and my face just laughed at that one too.  I have never been treated by this dermatologist so he has no prior experience with my reactions to other antibiotics.  All he knows is my long laundry list of antibiotic trials.  Every dermatologist I have been to has run out of options and has wanted to put me on Accutane I just haven't had the time for the monthly testing until now. 

My dermatologist has me taking Vitamin E for dryness up to 1200 I.U. per day, Fish Oil to hopefully keep my triglyceride levels down if necessary I am currently taking 1000 mg of that, and Vitamin B6 to help with my chin flares.  I am not allowed to use any acne washes, toners, creams etc.  I am to use a gentle face washing soap (cetaphil, cerave etc.)  I also need mosturizers (they weren't joking about this one) and sunscreen they suggest bull frog sunscreen.  I haven't really had much use for the sunscreen yet being as it is January.  They also suggest Vaseline or Eucerin Aquaphor Lip Treatments for the dryness. 

 You are not allowed to drink while taking this medication due to Accutane messing with liver function and your body already having a hard enough time metabolizing alcohol.  You also have to choose 2 forms of birth control due to Accutane causing miscarriage and head deformities in babies.  For me personally I chose abstinence that was the only way to ensure that I would not get pregnant.  I could not handle having a miscarriage so this was the option for me!

My pre-lim blood work came back perfect (my triglycerides were below normal) so I was cleared to begin my treatment.  I was started on 10 mg. of Accutane to be on such a low dosage I am very dried out.  I constantly have to keep something on my lips and by the end of the day my face is peeling off!  To me my face is already showing improvement people have even been asking me what I have been using.  I just keep reminding myself that all of this is worth it. 


Before:

1 month on 10 mg.:

My scars have been filling in and most of everything on my face is flat.  Hopefully the increase next month will take care of that!

Today I have bloodwork as well if all my numbers are where they need to be I will be increased to 20 mg.  Prayers for great numbers would be appreciated!



Shouldn't some things be said at the beginning?

I think I should start this post with something that is making me smile currently and that is Bernice is prancing around the living room chasing flies.  I know it is really random and kind of gross but it is making me smile. 

Ross and I are no longer dating.  Which is the reason for my title.  We had a talk and he has said that he is never going to adjust to having a girlfriend he has been single for too long.  Is it just me or aren't relationships about adjustments not necessarily changing but adjustments.  He says he is too opinionated and set in his ways to have a serious relationship.  I just said that well maybe one day he will meet someone and he will WANT for all of this to happen that that person would be worth the adjusting for.  He said he didn't think he ever would that he would just be a "bachelor" for the rest of his life.  Ouch. I know he didn't mean it the way it sounded but it still doesn't make it not sting a little.  I told him that I was looking for this to head down a serious path he said that he was just looking for fun right now.  Which brings me to the title shouldn't we have discussed this in the beginning?  I mean after being together for pretty much 2 months how could you not expect for it to eventually turn into something to serious.  I mean when you are trying to talk about the future with me and saying certain things how could it not take a serious turn?  Okay enough of that.

I had teacher inservices Monday-Wednesday which were horrible it was nothing but watching videos and observing what you saw...all in all I was not impressed and I could have done all of that sitting in the comfort of my own home :)

I have a feeling once I move back to small town america I am going to be single for a long time...either that or all of my former students will be wanting to fix me up with people that they know.  Like the single man that works at the store with the 4 kids...No thank you.  I know that there is a perfect time and place for this so called perfect man to walk into my life, but I just don't think its going to happen this year when I am teaching at small town america. 

Enough of this depressing post.... I should have more happier things to post about soon. 

Until the day God calls me home..

Today I learned of the loss of one of my grandparents good friends.  He lost his battle with cancer as much as it hurts and is a sad time when people die I'm just glad he isn't hurting anymore he lived a very full life and I'm very glad I had him as a part of my life.  He was hilarious, fun and full of life my grandparents will miss him dearly. 

As much as I hate things like this they always make you start thinking and all I'm going to say about it is that when something happens to my Nanny Reba I will fall a part.  I don't know what I will do or how I will get over that.  Luckily I currently don't have to worry about that so I'm going to not dwell on that.

Today consisted of doing absolutely nothing and it was GREAT.  I talked to Andi off and on all day and we facebook creeped which I haven't had the time to sit down and do for a very long time, and sometimes I'm not going to lie I like to creep.  I basically stayed in my pajamas all day and watched Dexter reruns (my guilty pleasure) because I have been craving a new season of that :)

I have a brand new windshield on my car which makes me happy!  What doesn't make me happy is when I went to pay the man the garbage men came by and dumped the trash.  When the truck set the can back down they tipped it over and left it in the middle of the road.  I was expecting someone to stop and pick it up but no they backed up a little bit and had to navigate around the trash can to move on to the next house.  How hard would it have been for them to hop up and move that trash can out of the way?  I ran out to the road to get it before someone had to swerve etc. when moving it the wind blew the lid up and it nailed me in the ear pretty sure it scraped up my ear pretty good and it still hurts.  At that point it took all I had not to give the garbage men the finger...but I tried to maintain a bit of class...for once :) 

Intense night in television

Between United States of Tara and Secret Life of the American Teenager I had a huge knot in my chest tonight. 

The weekend was a little intense one of my former show heifers had a bull calf this weekend.  She was in labor for at least 5 hours we saw hooves sticking out at around 6:00 pm.  We have always been told that after an hour if that calf hasn't been born it is time to pull it.  We didn't have anything to pull and it was a Saturday night so we just brought her up to the barn (which took about 2 hours) so we could load her up in the morning to take her to the vet to have this dead calf pulled.  I thought she might be able to push it out so I went and checked on her at around 9:00, 10:00, and the last time at 11:00 and there was still no baby calf in site (dead or alive).  After a restless night of sleep I woke up early and I was going to check on Desi-Lu (thats the momma cow I named all of my cows after I love lucy) my mom and dad were coming in and said you want to go see the new calf?  Desi had given birth to a LIVE baby calf after all of that time!  I named him Production because on his papers I want it to say Desi Lu's Production I'm not sure why I want it to say this I just think it would sound pretty cool.

I just wrote an entire paragraph about a cow...man I live my life on the edge ha ha.  I went to a workshop today over educational technology tools and it was not the workshop it was supposed to be.  I was very disappointed I felt that I could have gone up there and taught everything that that person taught I have been using those same exact things in my classroom already for the past 2 years.  Maybe I'm ahead of the game I don't know but I am a firm believer in putting technology in classrooms.  I mean I let my kids use their ipod touches in my classroom.  I just want the 7 hours of my life back please. 

Tomorrow my car windshield is getting fixed and I am one step closer to my new car.  Now my only prayer is that they can find mine in the make and model that I want which is not looking very likely :(.  That is the one thing I want more than anything I feel that it is my last step to feeling like a grown up.  I crave independence it may not seem like it at times but I just want to do things for myself for a change and not have to count on anyone but me.


Meet Desi Lu's Production

Welcome to my Silly Life

So I'm not quite sure what this whole blog this is about but I figured I would give it a shot.  I think I'm going to just start my first post with a little about who I am. 

I am a 25 year old teacher.  I spent the past year at my 1st/2nd teaching job (this is the first one where I was a certified teacher and not a teacher's aide).  I taught 4-7 Science 6-8 Boys Technology and 5th grade Social Studies it was challenging for my first gig but I survived and have recently been reassigned to something I nearly know I was destined to be...a 2nd grade teacher.  This past year I also moved out of my parents house and rented a house from the school. This is the first time I have ever lived on my own and paid all of my bills for the first time in my life I feel like a grown up and it is a good feeling. 

This past year has also brought about many changes in my life.  In February I ended a relationship with a guy that I had dated for nearly 3 years.  Some people couldn't be happier with this it has been a hard time for me.  I know I am better off without the stress that this relationship brought into my life but it is hard to realize that among all the good that was with the relationship sometimes "Love" just isn't enough. 

As it turns out life was not through with throwing me surprises in April I started to date someone new.  It was a new relationship in some ways but at the same time its an old one.  He was my first real boyfriend in high school and was actually my first kiss.  We stayed in touch off and on all of this time and somehow or another decided to give it a go.  It is definitely an adjustment after 3 years of the same thing but it is a good adjustment.  I see all of the things my other relationship was lacking and it is stress free and it is easy we can just kind of be and it is okay.  His name is Ross just in case I may blog about him in the future :)

I guess now it is time to talk about the true love of my life being as I know for a fact that she will sneak into every entry I have.  Last year for my birthday I received a Boston Terrier puppy I named her Bernice strange name I know but she is named after the Miranda Lambert song White Liar.  I fell in love with the song because that name was in it and she even used the word turpentine (sp.?)  I was impressed.  As disappointed as I was that Bernice was a Boston and not a Pug like I had wanted I begin to just fall in love with her and her personality.  I think this really happened when I moved to the middle of nowhere (which that is a story for another time)  all I have is her and all she has is me so we just have this bond.  So much of a bond that it has recently developed into separation anxiety which is turning into a problem.  I take tons of pictures of my dog and post them on instagram so I will probably post pictures on here as well :)  I would also like to write a children's book about her someday...how to go about this I do not know but it is a dream of mine :)


2nd Annual Fun Run we walked the 5K this year



This is just a drop in the bucket compared to everything that seems to be going on right now but you have to start somewhere right?