extreame acne ?

Natural Living is about being the best you can be, so your post is, IMO, most appropriate.

Yes, Accutane has serious side effects, chief among them, being a strong teratogen.

Remember teratogenicity is related to carcinogenicity.

Accutane is an artificial branch of the vitamin A molecule. If an alternative practitioner tried to market Accutane, it would have skull and cross bones on it and be off the market very quickly.

But I do sympathicize with you; I had acne from the age of nine to the age of thirty-seven. I broke out everywhere, all over my body - face, neck, arms, back, chest, legs. Diet did not seem to help. The only time I got relief was when I was pregnant, so maybe it was hormonal. I tried everything; I tried antibiotics and now I have a life-threatening allergy to penicillin. The only thing that seemed to work fairly consistently was to wash my face thoroughly, dry it and apply acidophilis to the affected skin. It seemed to correct the bacteria that was there, rather than kill it and sterilize it.

A footnote: Even after years of breaking out all over and very badly, I have very few scars from the ordeal. My skin is finally smooth and clear and at my age, I do not have any wrinkles in my skin. I credit taking vitamin A and D in the form of cod liver oil all those years and a good basic diet regimen.

Try the book, The Acne Prescription by Nicolas Perricone. He's a dermatologist who says the food susceptible individuals eat causes inflammation in the body, and thus acne. He gives lists of flammatory and non-flammatory foods. (Just for examples, sugar and especially dairy products are really inflammatory and notorious for causing acne. Salmon is anti-inflammatory and good for the skin.) Give the book a try and see if it helps, before resorting to extreme meds like accutane (When I was 19, I took accutane, and have since discovered that controlling diet is much easier and safer, and more permanent... I was told if I lived in a dry climate, the accutane would keep the acne cleared up for about 2 years, and if I lived in a humid climate, only 1 year. It lasted longer for me than that, about a decade, but here I am in my 30's struggling with acne all over again.)

As for soaps, my dermatologist advised the acne products by Neutragena with a Buff Puff. But without good diet, these don't help all that much. Every time I binge on icecream for a couple days in a row, I break out with bad cystic acne. Keeping a food diary might help to pinpoint the culprit causing the flair-ups if you're not sure. Good luck!