Mental changes with Accutane

Have you ever thought that the accutane has nothing to do with his recent actions?
1) There are thousands of people on accutane and its not like everyone is going berserk.
2)There are millions of people NOT an accutane, that drive drunk, doped, and who knows..

Also, your GP or derm shouldve warned you that while on accutane, it is VERY IMPORTANT not to drink any alcohol, since the enzymes that metabolize it are being used up by the medication, therefore, besides being intoxicated for longer periods, you can really screw up your liver forever.


You cant spend your life blaming other people or things for your own problems. Talk to your son and see whats going on. AND TAKE HIM OFF THOSE ANTIDEPRESSANTS he is too young for that.

Are you even aware of the side effects of Accutane??
Liver diseases, depression, suicide... (and for my part chronical acid reflux)

People DIE from this powerful drug, but there are always some inconcious and ignorant people like you (GP and dermatologist are not excluded from this category) who denies the potential link between the drug and the side effects.

If this pill causes severe damages to a foetus, why wouldn't it cause severe damages to our own body?

Hey Guys,

I think that you are being a little judgemental and harsh on the first post. Seriously, if her son is feeling depressed a mixture of psychotherapy and medication is shown to be the most benficial course of treatment, and as long as her son is above the age of 13 most psychological medications will work just the same as if he were an adult. Both of you need to be more empathetic and think of how this parent is feeling. I was on accutane during my freshman year of college and I drank while on it and no one ever told me. I did some stupid things and had very heafty mood swings. Then for the rest of my college career my personality calmed down and my friends all said that I was a different person during freshman year. I think that your son will be fine, however, he should be more in control of his actions. I do not think that your son drinking seven beers and then driving can be blamed completely on the accutane, and as for Mphar I think your statements were pretty ignorant, so maybe you should take a good look at yourself.

I was on accutane during my senior year of college in 2002. The drug has serious side effects, some of which can be fatal. I continued to take my medication because my severe acne caused more depression than the drug itself. From my second month on the drug until the end, I was not myself. It took stopping the drug to feel somewhat normal again. Not sure what causes the mood and behavior changes, but they are real. I had a great job and friends, and I just quit and didn't show up to work. (very uncharacteristic for me) and w/o explanation. I lost a great group of friends and didn't have the heart to go and talk to anyone about it. This lasted for a few months. I was on Accutane for more than 5 months. If you notice similar symptoms, stop the medication immediately. Doctors don't realize how dangerous this drug is and what it does to the personality.

I have a son who at 15yrs old was put on Accutane back in 2000. Right in the middle of teenage changes. He was a mess on the stuff. Doctors wanted to put him on an Anti-D, and did. He was a guinney pig. They are prescribing based on I don't know what. We as parents are trusting the Doctors who sometimes are less educated on prescription drugs than you would expect. He almost offed himself right in front of me during a severe mood swing. His eyes were black, and he acted a bit psychotic. We were horrified. We finally got to a psychologist who had us stop everything he was taking. We had to get to the bottom of what was what. Within a ten day period after stopping the drugs, my boy came back. His eyes were back to normal, he felt less agitated. I said to him, welcome back! You really scared us. He never acted that way before being put on ACCUTANE. His skin is scarred from nodular Acne. But he is alive and moving forward at 24 years old. It has been probably the hardest thing to endure watching your child suffer and you are depending on PROFFESSIONALS to help you thru this, and sometimes they are just as blind as you are. Be very careful when and if you are suggested by a doctor to try ACCUTANE. Protect your children!

Wow, that's terrifying and I'm sorry to hear that your son was feeling tha way, and I hate that they don't know about this problem as much. Frankly, I think that Retin A works just as well and doesn't have any of the psych problems associated with it. Did he ever take that at all?

Accutane was a fairly new medication when my then 22 yr old boyfriend was put on it to address a very severe case of cystic acne, the type that is very painful and scarring. This was way before some of the side effects were well known. They knew about the liver complications, so he was monitored regularly. What they were not aware of were the emotional side effects. When he was a little more than halfway through the treatment, his personality changed drastically. He became unreasonable, irrational and horribly irritable. During one very disturbing outburst, he hit me several times. Needless to say that was all it took for him to see his doctor to be taken off the drug. His true personality did not return for several months. I can only imagine what this drug does to adolescents! The bottom line: it is not for everyone and it should always be the treatment of last resort.

I took Accutane twice. First in 1987, then again in 1990. The information I was given was that it made some obscure change in being able to sense other people's emotions. My use did change my ability to sense certain subtle changes, mainly In the form of my being unable, ever since ,to sense my insulin reactions coming on. Instead, I get this long, lsd-trip like reaction, since I cannot sense them, and to even break that inability a little bit I have to drink tons of caffeine. In addition, I was later diagnosed with bipolar 1, rapidcycling and currently get SSDI for it.

Every single person I knew in HS and college who took it had weird "personal identity" disruptions happen, being unable to figure out certain things about their core nature as a person. At one time or another, the company itself has documented this. The insulin reaction insensistivity has been too. I had deep cystic acne that was not healing. Although it did help clear up my skin, it was not worth it at all.

I also would caution anyone reading this to consider that the US government and ALL of the largest drug companies pay people to troll social media sites like this and go on the attack against anyone who points out scientific facts. I would ignore any of those attacks like those above. If you notice, most of them sound the same, use emotional reasoning, and make grand sweeping and inaccurate analogies. Sure people drive drunk, and sure people have problems. But, after you take Accutane a rather ridiculously high and documented amount of people wake up non-drunk and not driving, having suicidal ideation which did not exist before, has no connection to how successful they are in life, and has documented side effects.

Write off any naysayers. The company does not routinely have to settle class action lawsuits because a few people had problems, they do it because a lot did and scientific evidence was overwhelmingly in their favor. If I could go back, I would take anti-biotics and exercise more, and then use something like deep baths and hypo-allergenic cleaning chemicals for my clothing and skin, and eat even better vegetables.

Remember, the company loses literally millions every year due to people like the ones described here. They hire at least some of these people o come here and use stupid arguments to shoot you down. But, it is the company which has been proven wrong, not you and other victims and med-takes like you. And that is a scientific and legal and financial fact, too.

If there are people out there, I would advise you NOT to take the medication, unless you want your kid to end up like me. I have an IQ of 148, no complications due to my type 1 diabetes after 33 years, and an MA in accounting. But, my life is sh*t due to abuse, and the different meds I took as a kid. One set that W reintroduced caused me diabetes way back In the day when I was given it for the coxsackie virus. I would, unless it is a med like Ativan with no known addiction potential or else repeated use with low cases of incapacitation, not take anything. Take a b complex, exercise more, drink less, eat better food. Ever notice the people who do that look younger, last longer, have less stress? So do most of the older people who exercise daily and eat right? I had a friend with inherited cystic acne, his family in Poland was known for it, and it was due to a reaction (delayed) to a number of foods and his wife got him off of them, and he is fine now.

I can't say that will work for you. But, there has to be some way to reverse the effects of Accutane and get it out of your system, and safely. In the meantime, until one of us finds something like that and posts it here, do not listen to the paid professional naysayers, and use the medical community's and scientific community's and the legal communities total denunciation of Accutane as being a fact instead of some emotional rant you found online. See reality for what it is-did your kid change, AFTER he took it? Then that is what caused it, and all the resources I mentioned prove it, not some paid p.r. representative.

A friend of mine was almost involuntarily committed when she arrived In the US from the Cayman Islands. She smoked pot to try and deal with the horrendous rejection she got at a state university, had a bipolar rapid cycling commitment. She struggled with meds, gained weight. Then she went back to the Cayman Islands, got a $42k a year desk attendant job at a hotel, and wen thru their national health service. They analyzed her sleep, exercise, stress, food patterns, and then checked her vitamin and body chemistry, and put her on a plan, and within 1.5 years she was no longer bipolar, no relapses either.

Lookit your kid ma'am. You are a mother, lookit the evidence, did all those people lie? Did they stand up with that evidence all over the country and lie and get away with it? You saw your kid, are your eyes and heart out of control, or is your kid having a problem due to the meds? Take it from me-take him to a doctor, get him taken off, see what you can do w/o giving him more meds to put him back together. Acne will pass with time. My mental illness and side effects, exacerbated by harassment, will not. Which do you want for your kid? I think you already know the answer, you just need validation to listen to yourself more. I am giving it to you, you are not crazy, do not listen to paid corporate shills.

My son is in his final (thank Heavens) month of this medication. He has shown the same signs your son has- mood swings, grumpiness, etc. It's like I have a whole new child! He would say the same thing- he is "fine" until about 6 weeks ago...then he finally started admitting the pills did thing that he didn't understand and didn't know how to deal with. He is almost finished with the course and it has been very trying for our whole family, as he has been difficult to deal with. We just keep in mind that it is the medication, not him, making him act this way. I understand how you feel, and fully believe there should be a support group for parents/families on this medication!

No ma'am, no support group, take him off immediately! This is a horrible poison! My husband took the Retin A cream and he developed Crohn's disease. Nobody in his family has it and his parents and family are all healthy. My horrible dermatologist prescribed my son this c**p, when I didn't know anything about it (that was 13 years ago) and my son's personality went from sweet and peaceful to horribly cold, cynical, depressed and aggressive. He hasn't changed back to his real self anymore, and I have the pain to see ihim that way and think that this happened because I believed a goddamn doctor!

My son also had severe personality change while taking it, and even though he has been off of it for 5 years his normal self has never come back. It is heartbreaking

My daughter took this too and it completely messed up her life. She had a psychotic episode and couldn't work, had suicidal thoughts and went from being a clever well adjusted girl to a depressive maniac. She was given anti-psychotic drugs and an anti-depressant but one year later has still not recovered. DO NOT TAKE THIS DRUG!

My 17 year old daughter just finished her 6 months at the end of May on Accutane. In January, her 2nd month, her personality started to shift. She was dating a wonderful boy and she suddenly dumped him at the end of February only to tell me that she was dating a girl. Our entire family was spinning out of control. Not only was she dating a girl, but a piece of trash type girl who was the polar opposite of my daughter. From March- May, she broke every rule she could to be with this girl; consistently lied to us and spent all her money in her bank account. It was the most bizarre, difficult thing that my family has ever went through. I was so distressed that I had to take an FMLA from work because I could barely function- not knowing what was happening and what to do about it. Today, she is off the medication and the other girl is "gone" from the picture although I am so afraid that the behavior will return.

I never in my wildest dreams suspected Accutane. I took it in the early 80's and suffered no behavioral side effects from it, so I didn't really think much of it when I asked for it for my daughter. Over the past week, I have been doing my own research and am discovering that it affects people very differently. I regret the poor choice that I made-

How can I discuss this further with you?
Please email me ***this post is edited by moderator *** *** posting of private e-mails is not allowed*** *** all questions should be discussed on our website *** Please read our Terms of Use