My dermatoligist was acutally quite horrified to learn that I had started a treatment of accutane. It was my family doctor who actually prescribed it.
After going through something like five years of both acne and highschool , something had to be done , and for all the suicides that accutane may have caused , quite frankly there are probably more that happen because of peer degradation because of a skin problem.
And this was back in 83 i believe , so cosmetic drug consumption was heavily frowned upon , specially with a doctor who was from a school of thought that it was a virus.
Em , you are quite correct in that someone who may have a few pimples and requesting accutane would be quite rightfully refused the nuclear bomb treatment, so the original poster would have to decide if he needs to assess the level of acne that he suffers.
And at something like 5 thousand dollars for the whole treatment , unless he had insurance to cover it , would be a major deterent in itself.
Thanks though , that was something that I had not thought of.
Declan