Accutane and Poor Diet: A Recipe For Disaster

Hi beautiful people, my name is Said. I am 24 years old and have been physically active all my life. I played football for years and do regular strength training. I have a lean, athletic build and have always made an effort to stay in shape. But for quite some time now, 10+ years, I have been dealing with persistent and concerning symptoms that don’t match my otherwise “healthy” lifestyle. The most problematic symptoms include difficulty breathing with minor exertion, high resting heart rate, and fatigue. I have also had several gut issues that developed when I was on the drug Accutane. They became so severe, that I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease. Thankfully, I was able to heal my gut with diet changes, but I am left with a long list of other symptoms, which I have learned recently may be a result of previously unrecognized nutrient deficiencies. I am sharing my story in the hopes that someone can help me to recover my health.

The Accutane Incident

Six years ago, I began experiencing digestive issues with abdominal pain and alternating diarrhea and constipation. This was as I was taking the acne drug Accutane. One day, everything worsened and I thought my body was shutting down. While eating, I immediately began throwing everything up. I became very dizzy and the pain was intense. It was so bad, I had my dad call an ambulance. At the hospital, the doctors suspected after Crohn’s disease. This was after one year when taking Accutane. I think the the mild stress event accident I had on the highway woke up my apparent diagnosed Crohn’s disease.

It took about 6 months before they did an endoscopy and officially made the diagnosis. I was told that this would be a lifelong issue. I decided to take charge and began investigating options. I decided to address the root cause with a high-dose vitamin D3 protocol, strict diet, and gut support. Now I am virtually symptom-free and my Crohn’s has not flared since. I believe that I have healed from it. My inflammation levels, as tested by the HS-CRP, was 15 at the height of my digestive issues, has declined to 7.5 as of June 2025.

While trying to heal, I learned that Accutane disrupts gut flora, can induce autoimmune-like responses (search Accutane + autoimmune), and may be linked to Crohn’s disease, although the research is mixed. That said, it is difficult to separate the effects of poor diet from the effects of the drug. Both are likely to have contributed to my declining gut health.

Although I have had success healing the gut issues, many other symptoms continue, especially the breathlessness, high resting heart rate, and fatigue. For that reason, I would like to walk you through my full story including symptoms, test results, supplement history, and what I’ve done so far. I am looking for help to resolve these ongoing health issues.

Symptoms

Over the last 10+ years, I have experienced many strange symptoms. They have become chronic and have significantly impacted my energy, mood, and performance.

• Exercise intolerance. I get breathless very easily, even after light activity (e.g., a short sprint feels like several kilometers). I can remember this beginning when I was about 10 years old. It could have also been earlier but I don’t know for sure. My cardio has never improved despite doing sports my whole life and it seems as though it has worsened in recent years.
• Fatigue – both physical and mental; even after good sleep.
• Cold hands and feet
• Dry, scaly skin, especially on hands
• Dry, brittle hair
• Forgetfulness, poor concentration, and word-finding difficulty. This happens intermittently. It feels like my brain just does not want to work the way it’s supposed to. For example, at work when asked a question, I sometimes just cannot find words. My mind is blank.
• High resting heart rate and very rapid increases in heart rate with minor exertion. It is difficult to say exactly how high my heart rate goes since I don’t measure it, but my heart beats really, really hard and fast, as if a tiger was chasing me. My teammates on my soccer teams also say that my cardio is very bad. They just don’t understand. I want to keep running more, but I am just out of breath all the time with sports.
• Anxiety – constant intrusive thoughts and difficulty calming down; sometimes even social interactions can trigger this.
• Constipation
• Blurry vision. I wear -3.00 lenses in both eyes.
• Poor endurance, especially when not well-hydrated
• Darker elbows, knees, and knuckles
• No lunula (half-moon shapes) on fingernails. I have never had them as far as I know.
• Mouth ulcers that used to come and go but are currently not present
• I get 7-8 hours of sleep most nights and I do wake up refreshed most of the times. I do not experience insomnia, I do have nightmares sometimes.

Childhood and Early Life History

My parents recall me always having shortness of breath during physical activity, even as a child. I started needing glasses at around age 12–13. I received the full standard childhood vaccination schedule (ages 0–10), which included 15 doses. I did not get the COVID vaccine. I did test positive for COVID on a PCR test but I had no real symptoms and recovered immediately.

As a child, my diet was very poor, full of processed foods, sugars, low-nutrient meals, and additives. This went on until about three years ago, when I made a major lifestyle and diet change toward eating whole, nutrient-dense, anti-inflammatory foods.

There is no history of autoimmune diseases, metabolic disorders, thyroid issues, anemia, or cardiovascular problems in my family that I know of. Neither my parents nor siblings have similar health issues, except for my brother. Like me, he becomes short of breath easily when doing aerobic-type activity. He has no other health issues.

I have never been exposed to mold, industrial chemicals, or heavy metals to my knowledge.

Current Diet: Whole Food, Nutrient-Dense, Clean

Although my diet was poor growing up and likely contributed to my symptoms and response to Accutane, since that time and for the past three years, I have maintained a strict, intentional diet focused on real, nourishing food. I avoid seed oils, processed foods, refined sugars, additives, and artificial ingredients. Here is a typical breakdown of my daily intake:

Morning

• 3–5 organic Medjool dates with grass-fed butter 4 table spoons and Celtic sea salt
• 3–5 pasture-raised eggs, mostly boiled (though I often feel full very quickly — especially after 2 eggs) with scrambled eggs I can eat like 3-5 depends on the day if I feel hungry.
• Raw grass-fed milk kefir – 1 glass daily
• Sometimes: raw, unfiltered apple cider vinegar before meals
• Two squares of 100% dark chocolate (researched the brand; low in heavy metals)
• Alaskan caught salmon 70 grams, which I recently just added because I am low in omega 3 according to my blood tests.

Lunch

• Often something simple, like a handful of cashew nuts (natural, unsalted, no seed oils)
• Occasionally, homemade bread from my mother, made with whole wheat flour, wheat flour, Himalayan salt, yeast, and water.
• 16 ounces of coconut water not from concentrate – almost daily.

Dinner

Dinner varies daily depending on what my mother cooks, but it is always home-prepared and mostly consists of:

• Grass-fed beef or other meats
• Vegetables (steamed, cooked, or raw)
• Organic jasmine rice
• Water: I use a high-grade water filter that removes fluoride, chlorine, heavy metals, microplastics, and other contaminants.

Supplement Regimen

Over the last few years I have begun adding vitamins and minerals and other supplements to help improve my health.

• Hydroxocobalamin (B12) injections – for the past 6 months ( I am still doing these )
• Adenosyl & Methylcobalamin B12 – 10,000 mcg sublingual tablets
• Folate (MTHF, calcium form) – 400 mcg sublingual tablets
• Activated B-complex been doing this on and off for last 1-2 years
• Heme iron capsules 20 mg is 1 capsule
• Magnesium malate – 300-400 mg daily
• Electrolyte mix with 1000 mg potassium
• Copper bisglycinate 2.5 mg to 6 mg which i took for a couple of weeks then stopped because of no symptoms improvement. I did also take zinc 30 mg monomethionine for a good time 2+ months. ( no symptoms improvement )
• Vitamin D3 10000 iu and K2 mk7 all trans version. ( when i started without supplementing my vitamin D level in blood was very low 30 ng/ml ). I fixed my vitamin d deficiency 1/2 years ago. Now its at optimal level and maintained.
• TUDCA – to support bile flow and liver detox. (I stopped this a long time ago.)
• Betaine HCl – for enhanced stomach acid production. Somebody just recommend me this because I also thought I might have a lack of stomach acid because of the constipation connection but I stopped this a long time ago.
• I also took PQQ for a little bit along with acetyl l carnitine
• Lactoferrin (apolactoferrin). (I stopped this a long time ago.)
• Allithiamine – 100 mg daily for the past 2 weeks (Dr. Berg brand). I will switch to TTFD soon.

Some of these supplements I no longer use but included them in the list for completeness.

Lab Results

About a month ago, I decided I would finally get to the bottom of these health issues and did some compressive testing, covering everything from basic metabolism, to thyroid, iron, nutrients, organic acids, and some enzyme activity tests. I was shocked to find that despite a clean diet and targeted support for the last three years, I was very malnourished with a long list of nutrient deficiencies and several other abnormalities. I should note that I stopped my supplements for two weeks prior to testing, so that the results would not be skewed because of the vitamins and minerals I was taking. Most of these tests were done on June 4, 2025.

Hematology and Insulin Markers

• Hemoglobin: 8.5 mmol/L (Ref: 7.5–9.7) – borderline low-normal
• Insulin Resistance (IR): 2.1 (Ref: ≤1.4) – elevated
• Insulin Sensitivity (%S): 47.8% – low
• HOMA-IR: 3.6 (Ref: ≤2.3) – elevated

Vitamin Deficiencies

• Vitamin A (retinol): 1.35 µmol/L (Ref: 2.20–4.00) – deficient
• Lutein + Zeaxanthin: 0.38 µmol/L (Ref: 0.46–1.59) – low
• β-Carotene: 0.41 µmol/L (Ref: 0.60–2.60) – deficient
• Alpha-lycopene 0.06 µmol/l 0.12 – 0.57 Deficient
• Beta-lycopene 0.03 µmol/l 0.11 – 0.54 – Deficient
• Total Lycopenes: 0.09 µmol/L (Ref: 0.54–1.15) – deficient
• Vitamin B1 (TPP): 100 nmol/L (Ref: 118–235) – deficient
• Riboflavin (B2): 611 nmol/L (Ref: 797–1860) – low
• Vitamin B3 (Nicotinamide): 33 µmol/L (Ref: 35–60) – borderline low
• Vitamin B5: 2.6 µmol/L (Ref: 2.7–8.4) – low
• Vitamin B6 act. (P-5-P) 87 nmol/l (85 – 505) – Borderline low
• Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxal): 8.1 nmol/L (Ref: 22.1–221.4) – deficient
• Biotin (B7): 838 pmol/L (Ref: 1227–12279) – deficient
• Folic Acid (B9): 14.3 nmol/L (Ref: 37.0–97.0) – deficient
• Vitamin C: 35 µmol/L (Ref: 50–120) – low
• Beta Tocopherol 0.1 µmol/l 0.2 – 2.0 – Deficient
• Gamma Tocopherol (Vitamin E): 0.91 µmol/L (Ref: 1.65–10.14) – deficient
• Delta Tocopherol 0.06 µmol/l 0.05 – 0.84 – Borderline low
• Total tocopherol 33.5 µmol/l 32.1 – 99.9 – Borderline low
• Vitamin K2 (MK-7): 2.0 nmol/L (Ref: 2.3–17.6) – low
• Coenzyme Q10 0.8 µmol/l 0.6 – 1.2 – borderline low
• Omega-3 Index: 5.3% (Ref: 8.0–15.0) – deficient
• Acyl / total Carnitine 0.11 Ratio 0.12 – 0.30 – Low
• EPA: 22.0 µmol/L (Ref: 36.0–120.0) – low
• ALA, GLA, DGLA: all low
• AA/EPA Ratio: 43 (Ref: ≤15) – high
• Omega-6/Omega-3 Ratio: 5.9 (Ref: 2.1–5.1) – elevated
• Omega-7 (Palmitoleic acid): 6 µmol/L (Ref: 10–40) – low

Minerals and Metals

• RBC Copper: 0.6 mg/L (Ref: 0.7–1.3) – low
• Serum Zinc: 0.7 mg/L (Ref: 0.8–1.4) – low
• Zinc/Copper Ratio: 21.8 (Ref: 9.0–16.0) – elevated
• Magnesium (serum): 17.8 mg/L (Ref: 19.0–24.0) – low
• Whole blood Magnesium 34.8 mg/l 34.0 – 48.0
• Manganese (whole blood): 6.8 µg/L (Ref: 14.0–37.0) – deficient
• Nickel: 0.9 µg/L (Ref: 0.4–0.8) – high
• Iodine (24h urine): 130 µg/24h (Ref: 200–2000) – deficient
• Vanadium 0.08 µg/l (0.04 – 0.08)
• Nickel 0.9 µg/l (0.4 – 0.8) Somehow this is elevated I have no idea where this is from only perhaps from the dark chocolate I have been eating but I asked the company and its low in heavy metals.
• RBC Selenium 0.173 mg/l (0.170 – 0.550
• Serum Selenium 0.097 mg/l (0.080 – 0.300
• Whole blood Selenium 0.129 mg/l (0.120 – 0.410
• Whole blood Chromium 0.2 µg/l (0.2 – 1.6 borderline low
• Serum Molybdenum 0.9 µg/l 0.5 – 3.2 Borderline low
• RBC Molybdenum 0.7 µg/l 0.6 – 2.1 Borderline low
• Reticulocytes: 20 ‰ (Ref: 5 – 16 ‰) ↑
• Glutathione Reductase (F): 8.6 U/g Hb (Ref: 5 – 11 U/g Hb)
• HLA-DQ2: Negative
• HLA-DQ8: Negative
  (No increased risk for HLA-DQ2-associated diseases)
• Sodium: 138 mmol/L (Ref: 136 – 145 mmol/L)
• Potassium: 5.17 mmol/L (Ref: < 5.56 mmol/L)
• Calcium: 2.48 mmol/L (Ref: 2.15 – 2.50 mmol/L)
• Glucose (NaF-blood): 10.3 mmol/L (Ref: < 20.5 mmol/L) ↑
• Bilirubin, total: 35 µmol/L (Ref: < 20.5 µmol/L) ↑
• GOT (AST): 25 U/L (Ref: < 60 U/L)
• GPT (ALT): 30 U/L (Ref: 40 – 130 U/L) ↓
• Gamma-GT: 92 U/L (Ref: 53 – 12900 U/L)
• Alkaline Phosphatase: 8100 U/L (Ref: < 250 U/L) ↑↑
• Cholinesterase: 299 U/L (Ref: 72 – 182 U/L) ↑
• LDH: 201 U/L (Ref: < 190 U/L) ↑ (heart damage? Due to b1 deficiency?)
• Hydroxybutyrate Dehydrogenase (HBDH): 263 U/L (Ref: < 250 U/L) ↑ ( Heart damage?)

Proteins

• CRP (ultrasensitive): 7.73 mg/L (Ref: < 3 mg/L) ↑ This was 15 when I had Crohn’s disease came back down to 7.73 now.
• Erythropoietin: 9.40 mU/mL (Ref: 3.22 – 31.9 mU/mL)

Cardiac Diagnostics

• Troponin T hs: 5.4 ng/L (No evidence of myocardial damage)

Autoantibodies

• Tissue Transglutaminase IgA: 0.5 U/mL no issues here
• Tissue Transglutaminase IgG: <0.6 U/mL no issues here
  Endocrinology
• Insulin: 5.6 µU/mL (Ref: 2.6 – 24.9 µU/mL)
• HOMA-Index: 1.3 (Ref: ≤ 1.0) ↑

Muscle Enzymes

• CK (Creatine Kinase): 263 U/L (Ref: < 190 U/L) ↑
• CK-MB: 36 U/L (Ref: < 25 U/L or < 6% of total CK) ↑

Renal Function

• Uric Acid: 327 µmol/L (Ref: 202 – 416 µmol/L)
• Urea: 3.84 mmol/L (Ref: 2.77 – 8.10 mmol/L)
• Creatinine: 90 µmol/L (Ref: < 124 µmol/L)

Organic Acids Test

Mitochondrial / Organic Acids (Krebs Cycle) Markers

• Citric acid 147.10 mmol/mcr 180.00 – 560.00
• Isocitric acid 14.7 mmol/mcr 22.0 – 65.0
• 2-oxo-glutaric acid 4.58 mmol/mcr 8.00 – 35.0
• all low – suggesting mitochondrial dysfunction or impaired energy production.

Glycolysis

• Pyruvic acid 7.31 mmol/mcr (Ref: 0.28 – 6.70 – Elevated

Vitamin markers

• Pyridoxic (B6 marker) 0.55 mmol/mcr 2.00 – 26.00 – Low

Toxic indicators

• Pyroglutamic acid 2.55 mmol/mcr 15.00 – 35.00 – Low

Neurotransmitter Metabolites

• Vanillylmandelic Acid (VMA): 0.61 mmol/mcr (Ref: 1.00–4.70) – low
• Kynurenic/Quinolinic Ratio: 0.35 (Ref: 0.44–5.00) – low

I am waiting on enzyme results: ETKA , EGOT , EGRAC , ESOD.

Thyroid Tests

The thyroid panel was done 6 months ago, while I was dealing with the inflammation associated with the Crohn’s episode. This is likely why my rT3 was so high. I will retest in a few months after I get my nutrient deficiencies under control.

• TSH: 2.6 mu/l ( 0.40 – 4.3 )
• Free T4: 16.5 pmol/l (12 – 22 )
• Free T3: 5.5 pmol/l (3.1 – 6.8 )
• Reverse T3 309 pg/m ( 90 – 215 )
• Anti TPO :  20 Ku/L  ( < 34 )
• Anti TG : 0.97 iu/l  ( < 1.53 )

Iron Panels

Over the last few years, my iron concentrations have been low. Listed below are the results from the tests across time. Value 1 is the most recent. At value 2, I was doing B12 injections, which explains the drop in TSAT. My hemoglobin has never been in the optimal range, which is 11 for males in the EU.

Blood Test – Results Overview EU values Netherlands.

Homocysteine, MMA, and most B12 markers are in the optimal range when I supplemented which made the test unreliable unfortunately but it may showed that my b12 was getting used properly.

What I’m Hoping For

I am sharing my story and my lab results because I am searching for someone who can help me identify the root cause of these long-standing symptoms and nutrient deficiencies that have persisted despite strong efforts in diet, supplementation, and gut healing. I would appreciate any insights, test suggestions, or directions that could help me move forward.

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