DermTV – Low Dose Accutane [DermTV.com Epi #376]

Accutane cures acne… if used at a certain dose. But can low dose accutane cure acne? In this episode of DermTV, Dr. Schultz discusses the pros and cons of low dose accutane. DermTV.com Connect with DermTV www.facebook.com www.twitter.com [TRANSCRIPT] Accutane, in my opinion, is one of the most important “wonder drugs” of the 20th century. In curing otherwise untreatable cases of acne, I have seen it literally turn around lives and careers of people that were otherwise limited or even in decline as a result of the physical and emotional stigmata of relentless scarring acne. For accutane to “cure” acne, it must be taken at a dose of at least 1 mg/kg of body weight for approximately five months. So for example, if you weight 130 pounds, you need 60mg per day. But, accutane has certain unpleasant short term, albeit reversible side effects. These include dry skin, chapped lips, increased muscle aches and pains after sports or workouts, and even elevations of blood levels of triglycerides, one of the fats in your blood. These and other short-term side effects are strictly dose dependent. That means they increase with higher doses of accutane. So they are more apt to occur at a full dose of 1mg/kg than they are at a quarter mg or even a half mg/kg. And interestingly, these lower, or “low dose” accutane treatments do a pretty good job of controlling acne and stopping even severe acne breakouts. So why not just take low dose accutane and avoid the dose dependent side effects …
Video Rating: 4 / 5