11 replies to this topic

[Self Conscious]

I know it looks like a lot of reading, but please bare with me.

Alrighty, so like I've been saying on the main holistic board my acne has returned somewhat and so have I. I once and for all want to get rid of it. Over the last two years I had very little pimples, but the ones I had the 3-4 years prior really left my face looking bad. I had a bunch of red spots and sort of like a pattern (I can't say how else to describe it, but hopefully the pics help).

Anyways, I am currently not doing anything with my face except wetting it off in the shower (filtered shower head) and trying to keep a healthy diet. My diet was pretty crappy over the last two years, but I still managed to not get too many pimples. The scaring was the only part that still reminded me of the acne.

Essentially I've come here for help on what you think I could do to better my situation. I'm thinking about getting a baby brush and gently rubbing my cheeks while in the shower, but I'm trying to stay away from topical creams. Take a look:

Right Cheek
http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/2720/img0282k.jpg
Forehead
http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/6927/img0283mq.jpg
Left Cheek
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/3535/img0287fy.jpg
Another shot of my Left Cheek
http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/5159/img0289v.jpg

I believe the pics may be a bit too big to display here.

You wanna hear something funny? My cheeks and my forehead were once the only clear part of my face. At around 16 I started getting acne on my nose and chin. However, today it's vice-versa. I come here humble and willing to listen to any and all advice. As you can tell my acne is not all bad, but bad enough. I think with some work I can get over that hump and do away with my facial problems. What do you think, wanna help?

Edited by Self Conscious, 16 March 2010 - 04:41 PM.

[Self Conscious]

Bump.

I'm really just looking for some insight.

[Crystal Brookhurst]

So youre not on any regimen? I cant see the pictures so i dont know if its severe but what i can tell you is when i tried to "go natural" and do nothing with my face it pretty much became grounds for acne to breed. In my research here i have learned that acne comes from within and basically if you give it a place to fester then it will grow, if you have a regimen, as simple as it can be, it just keeps the bacteria from growing. I would suggest continuing with your eating lifestyle and incorporating a regimen so that you can begin using some AHA+, i hear its good for scarring..hope i helped a little bit! Good luck !!

[Self Conscious]

No, I'm currently not on any regimen. For as long as I can remember topical creams merely hurt more than help. Would you like a run down of which screwed me up the most?

Murad - I used this one for about a month and it completely changed my skin forever. My forehead has been forever different. I started getting this sort of tension in my skin that till this day (about 3 years later) I still can't get rid of. Not only that, but I had very very little pimples on my forehead and thought by using that I could get rid of those very few. That backfired and I have had slight acne on my forehead ever since. My cheeks didn't clear up in the least and once I ran out I gave up on that product.

Proactive - Oh God, don't get me started. Once when I used this it literally made my face look tomato red. Haven't used it since and it only hurt my face.

Various topicals you can get at a drug store - Recently I started using a Cetaphil soap bar, but again I started breaking out and took about two weeks for my skin get back to what is normal for me now. I used some others over the years, but nothing worked. At all.

Dan's cleanser - I thought it was helping, but my acne was very persistent. This cleanser was gentle, but didn't get rid of my acne even after months of use.

However, after all that changing my diet and not using anything on my face my acne cleared more than it ever had. This was about 2 years ago. Today I've got only a couple bumps on my face and scaring that I can't get rid of. The bumps on my cheek are very small, but they are there. The scaring is not holes, but a kind of pattern of red marks. As if someone threw paint at me and it kind of dried there. I can't explain it too well, but the pictures can.

Recently I've just started hoping that with age it'll go away. I know my father had acne and his eventually went away.

[imogen11]

Hi there

Have you considered that it may be fungal - for example some sort of folliculitis, rather than acne?
It kind of looks like that to me, although I am no expert. I have had this myself though and I mistakenly thought it was acne too.
The fact that it is resistant to anti-bacterial topicals like BP would make sense too.

You could always try some anti-dandruff shampoo with ketoconazole in it (preferably 2%) and see if that works? You'll know almost immediately, or at least after a couple of applications as it will clear pretty quickly. Just rub a bit of the foam on and leave it for a few minutes before rinsing.

Hope this helps.

[Self Conscious]

Could I use any anti-dandruff shampoo? Head and Shoulders? Do you know any which contain ketoconazole in it? I've never considering it could be that because I've never heard of it, hehe. Although, I'm grateful for your input.

[Q_P]

Hi! From your pictures, your acne looks really mild. If the redness is mainly what's bothering you, you could try Skin Biology Emu Oil; it has helped my red marks very much.

If you are still a teenager, you are probably taking the right approach with "less is more." It's likely that you will grow out of it if your father did and you're not irritating or damaging your skin.

I also suggest taking Zinc to help with healing, and 500-1000mg GLA in the form of Borage Oil to help with hormonal balance. Eat plenty of greens, too!

[Dotty1]

My input:

If you do not feel like topicals, I would not use it. Topicals only mask the problem, they don't solve the underlying cause. You will be fine with washing it with water and exfoliating occasionally. If you feel like a moisturizer, use something natural like olive oil or something similar naturally.

I believe your acne is caused from something in your diet. Do you eat 100% unprocessed foods? Do you eat a little junk food? Post what is your diet.

The trick to finding your acne trigger is actually putting yourself on a very restricted diet for 2 weeks. A restricted diet can be: Spinach, kale, zucchini and a few other vegetables (not nightshade vegetables) for two weeks. You can use sweet potatoes as your heavy carb to keep you feeling full.

See if the new pimples stop coming. See if the blackheads stop coming and the the pores stop filling up with oil. From there, you can see if your acne is caused by the inability to digest protein, from a citrus sensitivity, dairy, etc.

Please post what your diet consists of.

Edited by Dotty1, 24 March 2010 - 08:59 AM.

[alternativista]

If you want to try a very restricted diet, it should consist of hypo-allergenic foods. You'll find a list here:
http://www.acne.org/messageboard/Food-and-...73#entry2356573

[Self Conscious]

@ QuirkyPixy:

I'm actually 23 now, but yes when my face loses some redness my face looks much better. I was looking into the emu oil, but need to do a little more research as to how my face may react to it. Too often in the past I've just dove right into new things and ended up with a $20 paperweight.

I definitely need to be getting more greens. I love lettuce (mostly fresh lettuce), but can you eat just lettuce on its own? Yeah, I really do that.

Any suggestions on a good zinc? I was going to take some a couple years back, but never did. Will it help with redness?

@ Dotty1:

Do you really believe that topicals only mask the problem? I'm not saying your wrong, but that would definitely make a whole lot of problems in your local stores pretty obsolete. They've never worked for me so I don't really go to them anymore.

My diet at the moment and for most of my life hasn't been great. I'm Mexican and we eat (well my family and I) lots of meats, pastas, beans, tortillas, eggs, and the other usual stuff. It's really good food, but I don't think it's ever been called healthy. Currently I'm at a point where I can't spend much money so it's kind of hard to try and eat healthy. Also, I don't have a stove readily available. What did you mean when you said 100% unprocessed foods? I eat out a lot. As in more than two times a week. I definitely know I should knock that off asap, but honestly it's never made a huge difference whether I eat it or not. My acne and pimples are pretty consistent no matter what I've done.

I'm very intrigued about eating only those few things and then seeing how my face reacts. Assuming that my face mostly clears up (redness and the couple of pimples I have) should I then begin to reintroduce foods to see what causes my skin to act up.

I'm going to give you a usual day of what I eat.

Waking up at 4am; only water until about 11:30am at which time I eat maybe beans, tortillas, pasta, some kind of meat, rice. However recently it's been mostly street eats. I may eat sometime later that day around 3-4pm which will consist of foods similar to the preceding meal. Lastly, sometime around 9 I may eat something small and at times outside food. Alright, so that looks really bad, but even when I cut out the fast food my face is just about the same.

Today I had Del Taco, and then a tostada and some kind of tuna. We'll see what I have later.

@ alternativista:

Thank you for the topic! I'm definitely going to check it out and see what I can do.

I would like to say thank you to the three of you for replying to my topic. It's definitely most helpful. And please, don't misunderstand me I will definitely work hard to get rid of my acne. I'm just at one of those moments where I'm tired of diets and such. Also the fact that money is a problem doesn't help.

[Ericc]

One Tip.

Your marks look quite the same to mine atm.
I'm on Tane atm and I'm using Emu Oil. It's definitely a product you NEED.
I'm not sure how sensitive your skin is, but this stuff. It's awesome.
It's made my face lose so much redness.

Aboslutely recommend you try it, although I don't wanna be responsible if anything happens for whatever reason. But yeah, like said, I wasn't scared to try it.
It just makes your redness look much better.

[ThatPrimalGuy]

Hey self conscious:

I'd have to agree that most topicals don't do much to help, but I do find exfoliating very useful (it looks like it might help your cheeks from the photos).

I personally exfoliate with baking soda before toning with ACV, but I've heard good things about baby brushes too.

As for your diet, I'd say your best bet is to try to keep it steady, and eliminate 1 food at a time while keeping some notes on what you eat and how your skin is. Sounds like you're not in a situation where it's that easy to regulate your diet, but things like dairy, tomatoes, citrus, nuts, etc could all possibly be a factor.

Can you think of anything that changed in your lifestyle or diet when your skin got better 2 years ago? it might not be something obviously good for your skin, but it's useful to track things like that.