38 replies to this topic

[whathavewehere]

Alright, something seems to be giving me rosacea, and I think it's the niacin. I'm going to cut out the supplements for a couple days and see if anything changes.

[whathavewehere]

Alright, today we had a 'crab fest' and I had myself a ton of crabs, a piece of chocolate cake, potato salad, and corn muffin with butter. At least I got diet iced tea, haha. But basically, all that food is just asking for a breakout. I'll probably get a new array of pimples within the next couple days. At least I didn't masturbate.

[whathavewehere]

Well basically... the redness hasn't gone away yet. I'm not sure if it's rosacea, some kind of allergic reaction, or some kind of dermatitis. The red spots are on either side of my nose, and between my eyebrows.

Today, the 'illegal' foods I had were a Nutri-Grain bar (not that bad, but 12 grams of sugar is a little overboard) as well as a chocolate chip cookie (oops), some Equal and a couple cough drops. Everything else was nice n healthy.

On a more positive note, I discovered that peanut butter on wheat bread (without the jelly) tastes really good. From now on I'm not going to add jelly. That will definitely help me in my goal of avoiding going overboard with my sugar consumption.

Also, today marks 1 week of abstaining from masturbation. From past trends, I usually crack around the 2 week mark. Let's see if I can even make it that far.

EDIT: Also, I should point out that I stopped using cleanser completely and now avoid actively washing my face. If water accidentally runs over it in the shower, I'm fine with it. I'm just trying to avoid putting my hands all over it and aggravating my acne.

Edited by whathavewehere, 23 October 2009 - 08:35 PM.

[whathavewehere]

Today I realized that the red patches around my nose region have something to do with the dead skin mask that forms after not washing your face for a couple days. Near the red patches there is a lot of skin that is just waiting to flake. I don't want to touch it though, so as not to cause irritation. There is also a lot of flaking in my chin area.

[whathavewehere]

Today I picked some of the flakes off my chin with tweezers, making sure not to touch the actual live skin underneath too much.

My lower face is looking somewhat better. I still have some large active cyst-like pimples, but mostly it's just tiny whiteheads, flakes and redness. The one pimple that bothers me the most is a large whitehead to the upper right of my mouth. There's always a little dry blood caked around it, so it makes it really stand out. I don't want to touch it though. I'm just waiting for it to go away on its own. I wonder how/when that will happen.

I think this regimen is working, but I don't want to jinx it by talking about it too much. I just have to make sure to stick with the diet and other restrictions, and not to cheat too much. Today the only 'illegal' foods I had were a couple cough drops (I've had a VERY sore throat the last couple days) as well as some jelly with my green tea (however, the jar said that it was 'naturally sweetened' and thus contained no processed sugar).

Edited by whathavewehere, 25 October 2009 - 01:21 PM.

[whathavewehere]

Yesterday and this morning I started cleansing again. My skin was getting REALLY irritated around the eyebrow region, and was flaking like crazy. The skin around the area was really raw and red. I therefore decided to just cleanse and forget about trying to take the 'no-washing' route.

[whathavewehere]

Well, as soon as I started cleansing, the redness started going away. This morning it was still kind of noticeable, but not as much.

However, instead of bright red patches, I now have to deal with flaky skin between and under my eyebrows, on either side of my nose, and around my mouth / on my chin. I really don't know what's worse - the seborrheic dermatitis or the acne. This morning in the shower, I cleansed it and then moisturized it afterwards, but of course moisturizer doesn't help against dermatitis. In about half and hour after I got out of the shower, the flakes came back. I picked some of them off with tweezers, but there were just too many, plus the picking was causing the skin to become more irritated.

This stuff is really a pain in the butt. I've heard that people have had success mixing apple cider vinegar with water and applying it to the SD topically. Next time I go grocery shopping (and have the money) I might pick up a bottle, just to see if it does anything for me.

As for my acne, it has remained pretty much the same. But of course expecting to see results after a week is really just wishful thinking.

EDIT:

I added Keebler's club crackers to my diet. I know that they are simple carbohydrates and should be avoided, but I need the calories. As long as they don't have milk/excessive sugar, I'm fine.

Also, I added some more supplements to my list. I'm currently taking:
Vitamin A
Riboflavin (B2)
Niacinamide (B3)
Zinc

I'm looking to add B5 in the near future, and maybe some others.

Edited by whathavewehere, 27 October 2009 - 01:30 PM.

[whathavewehere]

Alright, I put up a pic of what my face currently looks like. Thankfully all the redness from the no-washing stint is gone, but the flakes remain, as they always have. I washed my face with cold water this morning and that kind of helped keep them at bay.

My acne (pic):
http://www.acne.org/messageboard/index.php...i&img=37521

I'm really sick right now, so I've been helping myself to a lot of Ricola (I made sure to get the sugar-free ones). I wonder if that's going to impact my acne in any way.

Edited by whathavewehere, 29 October 2009 - 12:32 PM.

[whathavewehere]

I got a breakout overnight, and I think it's due to the fact that I was abusing cough drops yesterday. I hate it though, because my chin/upper jaw area was starting to look a little better, and now this... wow. Also, I got a whitehead right in the corner of my mouth, which I hate because I can feel it every time I move my lips.

[whathavewehere]

Okay, I had so much 'bad' food last night that I'm not even going to try and list it all. But I guess this marks a turning point in this regimen. From now on, no more cheating. And no more cough drops/Keebler's crackers lol.

[whathavewehere]

Eh, I cheated a bit again. Actually a lot. Had several bowls of Raisin Bran with milk, as well as two protein bars, a bunch of cough drops and some other stuff. The upside is that I'm currently at home trying to recover from illness as opposed to being at the dorm, so I'm in a much more stress-free environment. Plus I've been drinking a lot of green tea brewed from leaves, as opposed from tea bags which is the way I made it in my dorm.

Oh, and I have to add that I masturbated 4 times over the past three days.

The bottom line is, I'm getting new pimples. They could be either from the slip-up in diet, or in the masturbation aspect. I can't really tell which.

Edited by whathavewehere, 02 November 2009 - 11:24 PM.

[whathavewehere]

Well, I looked in the mirror today with a very bright light on, and was really crushed by what I saw. My skin is awful. My entire face is extremely oily. I have seborrheic dermatitis flakes between my eyebrows and on my chin area, and even in my eyebrows. Whereas the upper half of my face looks somewhat clear in dim light, here in this brighter light I realized that all of that was just an illusion. There are small pimples everywhere. There are even some redder ones developing on the sides of my face and on my forehead, areas which I used to think were clear for good. My cheeks are covered with pits, hyperpigmentation, and other scars. I haven't been shaving my 'stache because there are pimples/whiteheads under it and I'm afraid of popping/aggravating them... and the 'stache looks awful. The worst part, I'd say, is my chin. It is covered with under-the-surface cysts and hard, painful whiteheads. It's like a mine field.

After seeing all that, I don't know what to think. I wish I had a close-up, high-res picture of my face from a month or two ago so that I could compare and see if my condition used to be worse. But sadly I seem to have misplaced all the pics I took.

Well what now? I really don't know.

[ItalianBoy]

Can't you get on accutane dude? you seem the kind of guy that would get it right away !

[whathavewehere]

It's something to consider. But I'd view it as a last resort type thing.

[whathavewehere]

Well... no matter how bad my face looks right now, I realize there must be a reason for it. Saturated fats are supposed to aggravate seborrheic dermatitis, and boy have I had a lot of those over the last couple days. I recall that before it wasn't even that bad. It was definitely getting better. But I had to go and muck it all up by binging on unhealthy foods.

Tomorrow I'll start afresh and definitely try to go at least 2 weeks without ANY cheating. It will be difficult, because as has been demonstrated already I'm not very strong-willed and have a tendency to cheat, but I really want to prove to myself that I can do this. Heck, even for a week.

[kickingacne]

Hey there. Saw you like hitting the gym but get acne from supplements. SNAP. I used to have that problem aswell. I say 'used' because I found how to put on muscle mass without the bad outbreaks I got from supplements. I took everything including roaccutane but my acne was quite bad and resisted every treatment.
Basically its taken me 5 years to find 2 supplements that don't cause me acne, and the reason they don't cause me acne is 1. they don't have spoonfulls of sugar in to boost calories and 2. they don't contain 'whey' which for me personally gives me acne, just by itself.

Anyway I've been getting my diet down for the last 5 years as I said, and now its there. No acne, and in the last 3-4 weeks 6lbs muscle gain. Now considering I'm naturally skinny I think its pretty cool. My diet at the moment is low in fat, high in natural protein (chicken), and moderate in low glycemic slow release carbohydrates. I find any high glycemic index foods cause outbreaks everytime.

As a rule of thumb -

Ditch the dairy, my acne was worst when drinking 2 pints of cows milk a day for muscle gains. Now I drink soya milk, I can drink as much as I want and no outbreaks, while still getting the gains.

Water. This is a big one. 2-3 litres of water a day, everyday. No excuses. I try to get in just over 3 litres if possible. Keeps you regular and washes any toxins in the gut along so they can't fester and feed the blood with toxins, causing acne.

Low glycemic carbs. Such as brown bread, sweet potatoe, buckwheat, quinoa etc. High glycemic causes insulin response, increased hormonal reaction = acne.

Unflavoured good bacteria yoghurt to keep the gut high in good bacteria. Too much bad bacteria = yeast overgrowth = acne.

When training - eat chicken. I have 2 chicken meals a day. Usually a breast and a leg, or a couple of legs. Chicken protein does not cause outbreaks when eating in moderation, remember the body can only store about 30g of protein in one go so don't eat more than this in one sitting. I have it pre cooked, no bbq or chinese flavour, just straight.
Remember supplements are exactly that, they try to copy the protein found in high protein foods. Ditch the supplement (apart from the 2 I've found!) and eat the real food, i.e. chicken.

There are vitamins and other things I take to keep control of it, message me if you want more info, I could type about this shit all night!

I've assumed you are not vegetarian. Also this technique gives me no acne so I don't know if you'll be the same, but theres no reason any food in the diet would cause an outbreak. Also I wash my face with warm water once in the evening. Every anti acne cream I've tried gives me more outbreaks as my skin is hyper sensitive. Also I use a tea tree product which is pretty good. Message me for more info and any questions.

[Deadmau5]

I'm sorry but you fail at this diet just give it up. You're in college it's understandable go on accutane.

[kickingacne]

One more thing... don't think if you eat bad foods the next day you'll get breakouts. You may well do, but I've found when testing trigger foods the main reaction is 2-3 days after consumption. If the food is a particularly bad acne trigger, the outbreaks may last 2-3 days as I have experienced. For example last week I trigger tested sweet popcorn. Result - 3-4 days after consumption, 2-3 days steady outbreaks. As my diet doesnt cause acne, the only cause of this outbreak was the popcorn. I trigger test roughly every month with one, maybe 2 new foods, adequately separated to see the result. I always trigger test when my face is clear, to get accurate indications of the severity. I even keep a journal so I know what will hapen to me after eating a particular food.

This is why for example on monday you eat crap, tuesday - perfect diet, wednesday - perfect diet - thursday - outbreak starts from monday - friday - outbreaks continue from monday.

I know cos ive been there, asking why the hell am i getting acne after these good diet days?? Crap stays in the system and causes acne sometimes as long as 4 days after consumption.

[whathavewehere]

@kickingacne - Well I've pretty much given up on protein bars and shakes. Now I just try to get in some peanut butter/wheat bread sandwiches within 30 mins of leaving the gym. I think that probably provides me with enough protein, and as far as I know doesn't break me out.

Edited by whathavewehere, 04 November 2009 - 08:30 PM.