Nutritional and Holistic tips for combatting Body acne
CAN BE USED IN CONJUNCTION WITH DAN'S BP/AHA REGIMEN!

After several instances of repeating myself in other threads, I decided to make a definitive thread of my advice for body acne sufferers - the following tips have helped me considerably with my body acne, and hopefully some of you may find they help, too.
Just to clarify - you don't need to do all the things I recommend at once! You could just try each thing for a few weeks to see if there is any improvement.

Disclaimer: Acne.org does not endorse any of the following products or regimens

Dietary and internal cleansing advice

- Cut out dairy and red meat - this really helped with my body acne. I'd recommend you try avoiding all forms of dairy completely for at least 3 weeks to see if there is an improvement. You can replace dairy milk with rice milk in cereals and drinks.

- Drink warm water with lemon juice added throughout the day. Try using up the juice of one whole lemon each day, in about 10 glasses of water. This will help cleanse your liver of skin-harming toxins, as well as helping to reduce inflammation.

- Cut out all wheat products - this can be more difficult. You could try and avoid all forms of wheat pasta, wheat bread, pizza, biscuits etc, anything containing wheat, for 3 weeks again, to see if there is any improvement. It IS difficult, but there are alternatives, and it would only be for 3 weeks, unless you do find it has an effect, in which case I don't think cutting those things out would be too much of a sacrifice.

-Cut out refined sugar. This isn't too difficult if you avoid chocolate, sweets, soft drinks etc. If you don't want to do this, then taking a supplement of chromium GTF can help, if sensitivity to sugar is the thing that's affecting you.

-Try some of the following supplements. They can be effective in combatting acne and increasing your healing capacities:
-Zinc[ (75mg/day),
- Vitamin C (2000mg/day),
- B complex (100mg/day),
-Beta Carotene (15,000ug/day),
-vitamin E (400IU/day),
-propolis (1000mg/day),
-acidophilus/probiotics (1 capsule containing 5+billion/day)
(I've put the ones in bold that I think would be most helpful)

I recommend searching the catalogues at www.iherb.com, Victoria Health and/or Biocarefor your supplements - they are usually reasonably cheap and excellent quality.

Taking essential fatty acids such as Flax oil or fish oil may have a balancing effect on your hormones, also. Healthyandessential.com do a great range of these.

If none of the above help, at all, you could possibly look into undergoing colonic hydrotherapy at a naturopathy clinic - this is extremely cleansing to your digestive system, which can have dramatic effects on your acne.


Topicals advice

CleanserYou could try washing with a very mild cleansing bar, as soap and supposed 'acne cleansers' can sometimes aggravate the skin further. Puredeming's castille bar is very good.

Antibacterial agent If BP is not working particularly well for you, you might like to look into the Manuka oil and honey antiseptic gel that Living Nature do - manuka oil is a strong antibacterial agent, and can be even more potent against p.acnes bacteria than tea tree oil. I find the gel to be very soothing to the skin.

Moisturiser Nature's Gift do an EXCELLENT essential oil mix, called clarifying synergy, which you can combine with hazelnut oil to make a calming antibacterial moisturiser.

Using a body-beautifying oil such as hazelnut, emu, jojoba or coconut will help moisturise your skin without clogging pores, and will help to reduce redness.

Other treatments

Try bathing every other day in a bath to which you have added a few drops of manuka/tea tree oil, a couple of tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, and 2 tablespoons of unrefined sea salt. This will help to soothe your acne and will ensure maximum absorption.

You may want to look into weekly lactic acid peels. This can help to remove dead skin cells, dirt, and other factors that may clog pores. It can also help fade red marks and shallow scarring. Good suppliers include: Puredeming and Loganwood skincare


I hope some of this may be helpful. Good luck and just PM me if you need any info or advice on anything I've suggested or anything else!

Best Wishes,
Paul

I don't know about all that other stuff, but I'd like to second the Flaxseed oil advice! I take 5 pills a day (equal to 1 teaspoon), and it does help my acne. I don't know if this works for other people or not, but I know for myself, I only have mild acne now. Haven't had any of those big red painful ones!

Is 2,000mgs of flax seed oil per day good enough to help acne?

I dunno, personally I would say try more then that, I think that's too little to really work. I'd say 5,000mg minimum. Try cutting back on fat in other things you eat (unhealthy fat like fried stuff) though to make up for the increased oil.

ok i agree with most the stuff u said bout ur diet.. but my nutritionist said things like wheat is supposedly good 4 curing acne.. and things with acid like dairy products or meats such as beef or pork shouldnt b eaten at all... where did u hear that stuff from?

I think you may have misinterpreted what your nutritionist said, perhaps. I don't think there has actually been a proven link between consumption of wheat and acne, but some people have found it beneficial to cut wheat out. You could try doing this for 3 weeks or so to see if there's any improvement.

You're right about acid-forming foods such as dairy and red meats - these are generally recommended to be avoided if you have acne.

Very true, good advice too. Doesn't it suck that us acne suffers have to suffer even more? When our acne free friends treat their bodies terribly and look great?! Not fair I tell you...



I had to fix my typo, sorry. I also have been pretty successful at controlling my acne which this past year got REALLY bad, I now have almost no new acne and I am healing at a very accelerated rate. Here's what I take:

50mg Zinc w/copper
1,000mg of vitamin C with flavonoids
B complex
ACES (Carlson product it has vit A,C,E, and Selenium)
Thorne Anti-oxidant (contains great stuff including Alpha lipoic acid which Dr. Perricone swears has an
impact on acne and inflammation)
(Thorne makes GREAT quality supplements by the way!)
Vitamin D 400IU
Magnesium 400 mg
Chaste Tree Extract (Good for women's hormone balancing Saw Palmetto is the male alternative)
Wise Women Hebals Skin Tincture (Has liver support herbs)
and LOTS of good oils including:

Flax oil
Primrose oil
Cod liver oil
Coconut oil

I also take my supplements so that they are absorbed better. I always take my vitamins with lunch and I mix my oils with Kefir which is suppose to be the best thing out there to help your body absorb them, I think they suggest any cultured product but I think the Kefir is the best.

So glad I found some other people looking to cure this situation with more than just throwing drugs at it (sorry if that offends anyone). Anyway, here's my questions/thoughts:

So I opted to not go to the pharmacy with my accutane script because I was too scared and felt there had to be another way. I purchased the Nature's Way Thisilyn Cleanse, Green Vibrance, Dry Vitamin A, and and Super Antioxidant 10 by Country Life. I'm taking all these right now in trying to rid my body of toxins and what not, but I'm curious to know about the EFA's. I tried them for a short time last year, but got the runs quickly after I started taking them (also, I took coconut oil simultaneously). So anyway, I've got some of the cystic acne and the red spots just seem to stay red for a long while. So, should I take the EFA's again? Any other recommendations outside of the list just posted prior to mine? Thanks guys. I want to win here, but it takes a team to be victorious.

the body requires the ubiquitous vitamin B5 to metabolise fat lipids
as this vitamin is crucial in all other aspects of the body management and repair particularly the sexual/reproductive organs it is depleted in some people, particularly in early stage..late stage puberty...they dont have enough...you therefore must supplement this defficiency with additional inputs
it`s harmless cheap and readily available
start on 5 grammes...for a week or two ...you should see a diminuation in the number of new spots then after a couple more weeks/month your skin should be clear..pores shrunk

if you are severely depleted you may need 10grammes initially then gradually tail off to a maintenance dose one.tp two grammes.
do not take other vitamins/products and cut out/down if possible as much oil/fat as you can

But..
I need milk.
I'm going to get osteoporosis, damn you.

Contrary to popular belief, there are plenty of foods that are better sources of calcium than cow's milk. If you are worried about not getting enough calcium from eliminating cow's milk, you could try replacing it with goat's milk, or rice/almond/oat milk fortified with calcium.

no wheat? does that mean whole-wheat or white flour? or just any grain in general?

yeah is whole grain wheat okay?

That's quite some good advie there Paul, cheerio!

Wheat, well, food allergies in general, are a growing problem. and food allergies definately affect your skin health. A few years ago, I figured out that that I'm sensitive to wheat. I cut down on it after some non-skin related symptoms got worse. Cutting down on wheat also improved my skin.

I'd just like to put my 2cents in... about 10+ years ago, I'd read in a holistic therapy book that mixing flaxseed oil w/ a few tablespoons of brewer's yeast can be beneficial to acne...I tried it and it did in fact really help my skin, not just acne but overall texture, glow, etc. I used to mix it with milk (I know that sounds repulsive but it's really not that bad once you get used to it) - in fact milk may have been one of the recommended ingredients but I can't recall for sure (getting old and losing your memory really blows by the way ).

Wonder why I'm such a dumb~@#! that I don't use it now

hell, i'm sure building a country would be easier than following this regimen... and we need milk to survive, bro.

instead of taking all that? why not just take multivitamins

I'm sure it all depends upon just how bad you want to get rid of your acne. If it really doesnt bother you enough to change your lifestyle, then don't change. Simple as that. And there are plenty of people out there who don't consume milk and live very healthily. Actually, 70% of the population SHOULDNT consume milk, because they are either lactose intolerant or allergic. I haven't consumed milk for nearly a year now. I'm healthier than I have ever been. You are foolish to believe milk is a necessary food. Seek knowledge and you shall find power.

Hi there, did u mean, take the brewer's yeast internally, or put it on your face. Thanks.