Anxiety that started on Accutane and never went away
I've never posted here before, but I took Accutane about 8 years ago in college. Before that, I was the farthest thing from an anxious person. I was always confident and comfortable in my own skin, and I'd never felt anxiety in my life.
About a year into treatment, I switched dermatologists because I relocated for school, and the new prescription was a different brand: Absorbica instead of whatever I'd been on before.
Almost instantly, about a week later, everything changed. I'll never forget standing in line at Chick-fil-A when I suddenly started sweating profusely and got super anxious. It was the first time in my life I'd ever felt what I can only describe as social anxiety. My eyebrows, nose, and upper lip were sweating, and I had no idea what was happening.
From that day on, it carried into everything. I'd always done presentations for school with no problem, but suddenly group projects and presentations had me losing my mind with anxiety. Then it spread to everyday things like going to class, being with my girlfriend, and even hanging out with best friends I've known forever. I was in the middle of college, panicking because I didn't know what was going on. I'd go to bed with my heart pounding so hard that I bought a heart rate monitor because I thought I was going to have a heart attack.
I started researching what could be causing it and found people connecting Accutane to sweating. I went down the whole vitamin A rabbit hole and started taking vitamin D pills, which I thought helped for a while, but looking back I think it was a placebo.
I went to my dermatologist, who said there was no way Accutane could cause any of this and prescribed me anti-sweating medication. It didn't really help, and the sweating kept making my heart pounding worse. So I went to a doctor for the first time, told them about my heart rate, and they prescribed propranolol. That helped, but I was having to take it a lot just to mask the symptoms.
Eight years later, it has never left. Whenever I'm out in public or interacting with people, a wave comes over me: flushing, sweating, and a fight-or-flight feeling that makes no logical sense. It feels like my personality changed.
The hardest part is what it's done to my connection with people. I struggle to feel close to anyone. I can't laugh with my friends or smile naturally. I can't show emotion, and I don't seem to be able to regulate it properly. It's like I'm a shell of myself, hiding because my brain isn't working at normal levels.
I feel stuck in a constant cycle of fear and negative thoughts, like my limbic system is going haywire all the time. Every morning I get in the elevator in my building and I'm already anxious about the people I'll see and what they might be thinking. I know it's not rational, but I can't shut it off.
I've tried everything: therapy, hypnotherapy, SSRIs, psilocybin, acupuncture, eating well, working out, and every over-the-counter remedy you can think of. The only thing that's really helped is taking Lexapro and propranolol daily, and even then I can't seem to break through. I never wanted to rely on medication to get through life, but I'm running out of options.
I'm not a quitter. I get through every single day and keep living my life, but it's exhausting to keep getting pushed back down because I still can't figure out what's going on.
Has anyone who took Accutane experienced something similar: extreme sweating, flushing, constant anxiety, and a feeling like your personality changed, lasting this long? If so, what have you done to get through it? I'd really love to hear from anyone who can relate.