You can always PM me if you have any questions.
IT TOOK ME 3 MONTHS ON THIS DIET TO SEE ANY IMPROVEMENTS.
*If you're interested in a Verilux acne light, PM me

After a year of having this blog, I believe my skin cleared up from my diet. I eliminated my allergy foods that were acquired from an allergy test and stopped having cystic acne. Also I believe zinc and drinking water has attributed to my clearer skin.



Vitamins I take:
Zinc [100 mg]
Orthotricyclen
Acai pills

What I put on my face (not all at once):
Papaya Likas Soap (staple)
Raw Honey
Neem Oil
BP 10% Spot Treatment (staple)
Oregano Oil
Sea Salt + Water Spot Treatment
(I do not recommend a BP 10% wash because it may cause too much irritation and leaves red marks LONGER. BP 10% forms free-radicals and can damage your skin but I love spot treatments too much.)


My diet?:
In one sentence, I'm Vegan. No meat, dairy or animal products.
It's not that hard to eat healthy. If you educate yourself on nutrition it helps a lot with the confusion. Check out the links I put at the bottom of this entry for help.
I avoid
-dairy,
-processed foods like t.v dinners,
-fast food,
-refined sugar,
-wheat,
-corn,
-soy,
-inflammation promoting foods,
-meat,
-eggs,
-fruit juices,
-iodine,
-tomatoes,
-high G.I foods (potatoes, rice, white flour, etc),
-things that have ingredients I can't pronounce or isn't natural.

Ask yourself before choosing a meal, "Will this hurt or help my body?" Let's face it, there's no nutrition in cookies or cheetos. I believe sugar is a BIG part of the diet you should cut down on. Why is this important? Because a rapid rise in blood sugar causes an insulin response in the body, which then causes an inflammatory response. Acne is inflammatory.Also, don't over eat. I drink a half a gallon or more of water a day. Near the bottom of this entry is a slight summary of what a good diet should consist of.

Summary of my skin type
Typical story of getting it at 13, accutane at 15, came back.
The first photo I have of my acne

My breakouts first started on my forehead and nose then migrated to my cheeks and finally on my jaw line and mouth.
I have sensitive skin so benzoyl peroxide washes and spot treating with salicylic acid would give me chemical burns.
I DO NOT USE PRESCRIPTIONS CREAMS OR PRESCRIBED PILLS FROM DERMATOLOGIST.
THIS LOG IS ABOUT DIET CHANGE AND HOLISTIC APPROACHES.


Photos from 2006-2007 with acne at its worst
Prom
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

MY LOG IN REVIEW (so you don't have to look through all those pages!!)

[January 2007 compared to September 2008]
http://i36.tinypic.com/k70ok.png
I am washing with Papaya Likas Whitening Soap for my red marks and alba green tea and aloe lotion + kiss my face peaches and cream alpha hydroxy 8%.
I do my acne light for 15 minutes everyday.

[September - October 2008]
I have been basically clear except rare single pimples by my mouth. Otherwise NO breakouts on my cheeks or chin!
I even stopped taking my vitamins for a week and still clear.

[November 2007 compared to November 2008]
(P.s.- 2008 photos I have no active acne. The spots are all hyperpigmentation)
#1 comparison
#2 comparison
Chin comparison
Lovely cystic acne 2007

[December 2008]
I had a horrible break out [Dec 14] everywhere I put a chemical peel I did at home.
After peel
DEC 23 with makeup
Dec 22 again
Those makes me cringe ^
Merry Christmas, huh?
I started drinking lemon water in the morning and putting lemon over my acne. I also started doing apple fasts for 3 days. Not sure if the apple fasts work but my acne is basically cleared up in 2 weeks.
Dec 27


[January 2009]
2006 - 2009 Left side
2006-2009 Right side
2006-2009 Front

It's been one year since I stumbled across Acne.org and you know what? I'm finally clear again.
I take my makeup off with Papaya Likas Soap. I exfoliate with the Clairsonic Brush but not everyday because I would get little tears in my skin. I use ground nutmeg and honey as a mask to lighten the pigmentation. I drink lemon water. I use Jojoba oil to moisturize and aloe vera gel over that. I also use Rosewater over oily areas. I spot treat with 10% BP and mint julep mask.

Having acne is bittersweet. It has broken me down emotionally many times over the past 7 years but I have learned so much about myself in the process. It has made me take control of my health and realize that acne can be eliminated by eating healthy and taking care of yourself.
I'm currently focusing on lightening the pigmentation left behind.


[Feb 2009]
Front
Side
Feb 2009 compared to Feb 2007
In February my birth control changed to Ortho-tricyclen Lo and I broke out in big cystic hormonal zits. I think it was from the fish oil because it was SO huge and reminded me of the last time I took fish oils I broke out in bigger than life zits.
But then it healed :)


[March 2009]
I read so much on Spirulina and the health benefits but obviously not the part where it contains iodine which can aggravate acne. I took it for a couple days and woke up with about 9 new zits. I stopped it and then took it again to see if really was the cause.
It was.
I broke out really bad all over my chin and by my mouth. Thankfully I healed from it in about two weeks. Learned my lesson!
http://i41.tinypic.com/2gwyxx3.png
http://i43.tinypic.com/29oiuir.png




[April2009]
I started taking Astaxanthin at the start of the month and am pleased with my skin! I also started washing my face with manuka honey along with African black soap.

Right side http://i39.tinypic.com/2qjgbb8.png
Left http://i39.tinypic.com/2wqeqo9.png

http://i42.tinypic.com/2r1zp8m.png
http://i42.tinypic.com/11h835w.png
http://i43.tinypic.com/330zlhl.png

http://i44.tinypic.com/28v7xw7.png
http://i40.tinypic.com/ornrs3.png
http://i42.tinypic.com/dvlovq.png


[June 2009]
This month I learned about neem oil, oregano oil and lavender oil. Since I started using neem oil my breakouts have stopped in their tracks. I also started taking p. husks. My red marks have faded nicely probably from the vitamin e oil.
2007-2009

[July 2009]
July was a good month. On the 13th I got my first microdermabrasion and I believe I see some difference in my skin. I do not get cystic acne anymore but rather small pimples. It is such a relief.
Front:
http://i26.tinypic.com/34hhr9e.png
No inflammation! My face would always be red as if I was in a constant panic attack or was running a mile but now it's better.

1 year ago (look at those sores!)
http://i25.tinypic.com/nd8n74.png

face:
http://i28.tinypic.com/30tm3r4.png

I can't believe that red mark on the left photo is still there a year later.

07-now
http://i25.tinypic.com/ruw7li.png

[August 2009]
The only breakout I have had this month is from PMS and those went away pretty fast.
Otherwise my skin is clear. I stopped wearing makeup this month also.


[September 2009]
I tried grapeseed oil on my skin and it broke me out :(. Not any cystic pimples but rather annoying pin sized zits in random places.

FRONT: http://i33.tinypic.com/2q2fg5l.png
SIDE: http://i34.tinypic.com/24g2k48.png
SIDE: http://i33.tinypic.com/wi3lur.png
JANUARY COMPARED TO SEPTEMBER: http://i35.tinypic.com/b97m2r.png
JANUARY COMPARED TO SEPTEMBER: http://i35.tinypic.com/21nlkdu.png

This month has been great. Since including the acai pills, I haven't gotten any cystic acne. Pretty weird.

[October 2009]
I had a box of sugary candy and maybe two days later, I had a HUGE breakout. It showed me that I'm not cleared because of my age but from my diet. That breakout healed and my skin is back to being clear.

[November 2009]
I started my lactic acid 55% peels this month. I still don't really break out anymore unless I am dumb and prod and poke a small zit that gets irritated and blows up.




Good Carbohydrates
Almonds, hazelnuts and walnuts
Apples, peaches, pears and plums
Blueberries, cantaloupe and blackberries
Asparagus, cabbage, broccoli, spinach
Beans black, kidney or lima
Slow cooked Oatmeal (not instant)

Bad Carbohydrates
Breads, Processed Cereals
Fruit Juices and Dried Fruit
Grapes, Oranges, Banana
Carrots, Peas, Corn, Potatoes
Rice, Pasta
Pancakes, Waffles

* Eat 20 to 30 grams of fiber every day “Fiber helps keep the colon clean and may remove toxins from the body before they reach the skin.
* Eat a low fat diet “The cultures whose natural diet was low in fat, had less acne, and high fat consumption may elevate hormone levels in the body that cause blemishes on the skin.
* Avoid peanut products “Peanut products were found to cause acne flare ups in a study of 500 adolescents.
* Avoid fried foods Fried foods were found to caused break outs.
* Limit salt intake especially table salt or iodized salt “ Many people with acne have elevated levels of iodine, found in table salt, in their blood stream during acne flare ups.
* Avoid highly salty sacks such as chips, lunch meats, canned foods, and salted popcorn “These foods are high in salt and, in some cases, fat.
* Avoid dairy products such as milk, cheese and ice cream
* Avoid highly processed carbohydrates such as sodas, candy, and baked goods “High carbohydrate foods raise the level of insulin in the blood and elevated insulevel may raise the levels of acne causing hormones in the body.

In addition to following the acne diet suggestions, taking the following supplements are proposed to also help prevent acne:

* Vitamin A (may be toxic consult your doctor first)
* Vitamin E
* Vitamin B6
* Selenium
* Zinc
* Omega-3 Fatty Acid
* Chromium


Websites I recommend:
My favorite site for nutritional stats
Best acne remedies
Favorite Table of Glycemic Index (GI) and Glycemic Load
Good nuritrion info
Carbs, Glycemic Index & Glycemic Load
Large nutritional listing database
Lists tons of info on food
My favorite GI listing
Favorite food and acne tips
Articles on acne

Lists low GI recipes and charts
Database of food labels & tells if harmful
Seppo Pussa
Natural beauty tips
Nutrional advice
Use to search acne articles

This post has been edited by acnejean: Nov 19 2009, 01:17 PM

i've noticed that my skin is healing faster after being on vitamins. it's actually a little scary seeing how my skin tightens after the short period of time, ha.

i did have maybe two pimples pop up since saturday but i think it was because i was in chicago and wasn't eating very healthy things like beef sandwich and fries with a root beer ha.
i put SA on it + BP and it hasn't gotten a head on it yet.

ugh, i havent gotten sleep in DAYS because the stupid people upstairs [step siblings] are walking on the floor at all hours of the night. makes me go crazy because so many things are connected to sleep and health

 Image10.jpg ( 13.99K ) Number of downloads: 112
 may27.jpg ( 24.72K ) Number of downloads: 110


the left side looks bad and infected it just the lighting and i have maybe two pimples active but a lot of red marks

 hugecyst.jpg ( 20.36K ) Number of downloads: 137
huge cyst!

hey, good luck with all this. i love picture regiments, hahah, i'll def be watching to see how this turns out.

btw, your third picture looks like a nipple hah.

large photo in high-res:
http://i31.tinypic.com/33as9p0.jpg [the biggest mark is the "huge nipple looking cyst" lol]

i have also bought bio-oil and when i woke up some of my "chicken skin" under my eyes were half gone which freaked me out because i didn't expect it to target that.
http://i27.tinypic.com/2ex7evo.jpg

i also bought a baby brush and asprin for a mask.

-sigh-
i broke out on my chin and next to my mouth.
of course with time the cysts have gone down.
i wasn't able to go grocery shopping so i broke out because i had to eat peanut butter from the jar and milk chocolate powder mix. how ghetto.
i'm going shopping tomorrow and have a huge list of things i can buy.

this site: http://www.naturalnews.com/012860.html has helped.

haha .. sounds like my case.. hate going out because of pimples..
also has redness and cyst on my temple.. both right and left.. and I just went for facial yesterday. The therapist took it out.. and now both my temples looks so red and bumpy..

Jiayo (all the best) to you and your vitamin regimen.
Btw.. how much(how many mg) of Vitamin do you take everyday?

umm i take a lot of vitamins, a,b,c,d,e.. flaxseed.. i take whatever they recommend on the bottle.
i always hear how it seems to get worse after a facial. i would expect that though. maybe it'll die down tomorrow?

i wrote this half asleep so if it is hard to make out, that's why.
this is my diet for years:

i never bought fruits or vegetables. i only got my vegetables from my processed marie callendar's frozen dinners which wasn't much.
i would buy frozen pizzas and in the beginning of high school i would always eat an entire pizza for myself.
i would always have velveeta. i stilll miss that to this day. i love cheese. i loved cheeze its too.
i remember buying spinach pizza because my dad thought it was healthy. i was skeptical especially when i found out each little personal pan pizza was 700 calories and didn't even taste good!
my cereal was normally full of sugar and unnatural flavors. i LIVED off pop tarts. i always had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or toast on white bread with butter.
popcorn was a normal thing too. movie theater popcorn style.
i always bought drumstick ice cream. pastaroni and salt filled soups. the juices i would buy were either filled with sugars or lemonade.
i never bought milk ..rarely.. because i was lactose intolerant.
cookies was all around too. chips ahoy or keebler.
i loved cheetos or lays potato chips.
ah, i miss all these, ha

now i have raisins and fruits to substitute my cookies. whole grain pasta for my velveeta.
i buy lettuce and canned vegetables.
i never knew about whole grain wheat products and stuck with white floured things.
i never suspected that acne was because of the food,.
just blamed it on my hormones.
shredded wheat cereal, lactose free milk, no ice cream, brown rice, healthy request soup, always looking for low sodium, salads,
green beans, corn, granola bars, breaded fish, water and no juices, yogurt, cottage cheese, canned fruits, vitamins, no pizza..
i'm surprised i dont weigh 200 pounds by this but i was never remotely overweight. if anything i was always under.
but i paid the price by having it show through my skin.
i am so happy i found the healthy way and just researched on how much junk america is putting in their bodies.
i sometimes catch a glimpse of people's shopping carts and it's kinda funny.
i see a couple healthy things and then bam, cookies, chips, soda.
why get low fat something when you're canceling it out with a sip of soda?

I'm have just started a very similar regimen. My acne looks really similar to yours. Good luck and keep posting your progress.

oo interesting. do you have a log? keep me posted

update:
last night i put on an aspirin mask and since it was flaking off, i surely couldn't sleep in it. i brushed it off but didn't wash it off and went to sleep with globs of neosporin on the healing pimples.
http://i30.tinypic.com/wstyxe.png
http://i26.tinypic.com/65aavd.png

the only pimple i have is on my chin. otherwise all the rest are red and healing

Just started one but no pictures... yet. I'm thinking about putting pictures. I'm having trouble figuring out what to eat with no dairy. I oftern eat a little snack either with cheese or butter or some cereal with milk or some yogurt. I'm so used to eating that way. Guess this will take some getting used to.

http://www.acne.org/messageboard/Starting-...in-t200523.html

i used to love butter but there are so many different options then dairy. you should buy lactiad. it is lactose free milk but sometimes dean's lactose free milk is cheaper. you should get shredded wheat or low sugar cereal. if you get yogurt make sure it doesn't have high fructose corn syrup like in all the yoplait yogurt. they do have plain which doesn't have h.f.c.s and you can even put a lot of fruit in it.
i stick with fruits rather than dairy now. have to watch out for sugar since it's linked to acne the most.. probably more than salt.

what's h.f.c.s? do you know if eggs are just as bad as milk? cheese too huh? you can see this might be hard. but i'll get used to it.

high fructose corn syrup. i've read eggs are bad but you can search to be sure and most likely cheese too since it's dairy.
i have posted a list of foods they recommend.
http://www.acne.org/messageboard/forums.html...p;#entry2314556

ha. i had this weird binge for the past week and it wasn't good. i had too much fruit and felt addicted to sugar because i needed to eat every hour.
i don't even want to imagine the calorie intake.

stupid stupid stupid. i broke out really bad.
it could be 1000's things and that's what upsets me the most.
stress, things rubbed against my face by accident, sleep, so many things.

i'm taking wheat out of my diet again and uping my vitamin c intake.
i'm sick or on the verge.
i'm going to change my fish intake from cod fillet to wild salmon and going to try frozen vegetables.
i'm pretty clueless when it comes to vegetables and only buy canned corn, green beans and peas with the occasional kidney beans.

i have a trip to chicago on saturday so i hope these constant aloe+aspirin masks help.

thanks! you sure have done your homework. i broke out today and I'm thinking it has a lot to do with hair products because it always seems to be in the area where my hair falls near my face. Have you read anything about that? which products are good or bad etc?

i dont use any hair products and normally keep my hair out of my face. i always read how you should buy natural shampoo and you can find a thread on here about it. all i know about hair and acne is you need to keep it out of your face. i had bangs and i always had acne under there. once i grew mine out i never break out on my forehead.

when i woke up this morning i noticed the black heads on my nose were huge and every pore was taken up. i don't like buying the nose strips because they are like 8 bucks. i tried using a new electric toothbrush head and putting a scrub on it but it hasn't done much.

i've been using asirprin masks with aloe for this week and i guess it has helped. i noticed the pimples are inflamed which is understandable.
i'm soaking my face in neosporin for the whole day because tomorrow i'm going to chicago to see my sister.
ugh, i hope i don't look like a fool with crusty skin.

my skin wasn't GREAT with makeup but i am sick of letting acne rule my life and be the problem or set back to not let me follow through with happiness.
i was going to lie to my sister and tell her i was still sick just because of it but i'm so glad i didn't. i had a blast and the fact she relates to me helped a lot.
i realized that the reason my face would get oily so fast is because the minereal viel wasn't put on first. duh.

i ate so much bad stuff. they told me to live a little so i did. i ate 3 slices of deep dish pizza, little tub of ice cream, cinnamon pretzel, french toast, bacon, eggs, sweet and sour chicken with rice.
that over a span of two days. so well see how much diet will add to my acne.

my sister has had acne like me but she's now 25. it isn't even that bad. she has no scars, just red marks that are tiny. obviously from hormones because she donates eggs and all that crazy stuff.
i have been thinking about trying a red/blue therapy light or zeno.

idk about zeno because you need to catch the pimple right away and it's a spot treatment while red/blue light therapy can get your whole face.
it's so pricey so idk.