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I've had acne for four years now. I had typical teenage acne throughout high school... not a problem. Then, shortly before 11th grade prom, I decided to start regularly "cleaning" my face with a salicylic acid scrub. Needless to say, not long after that, my face erupted and has never been the same since. I can safely say I've used almost every acne treatment under the sun short of Accutane. I've been on derm-prescribed antibiotics twice, derm-prescribed BP once, Dan's Regimen for a year and a half. I've used countless over-the-counter cleansers, masks and spot treatments. I've altered my diet in more ways than I can name and have taken every vitamin of the alphabet. I've abstained from masturbation for a month and I've tried urine therapy, both internally and externally.
I have read several success stories about people who have gone water-only and have, over a period of several months, been able to heal their skin... not stop breakouts, just return their skin to a stronger, less irritable and less acne-prone state. Currently, my face is a right mess: I've got cystic acne on my mouth and jaw region, as well as a little bit near my nose. For a while now, I've also had what seems like a dermatitis flare-up on my nose and inner cheeks... meaning red, dry, flaky skin concentrated in that area. A lot of the mouth region acne was caused by a recent two-week bout of taking vitamin B12, a decision I now sorely regret. I have yet to pinpoint the cause of my dermatitis.
There are two reasons why I am intent on trying this regimen. One is the fact that, as mentioned previously, my first encounter with severe acne came not long after I decided to start using cleanser / scrub. Two is that, from around October '11 to February '12, I slacked tremendously with Dan's Regimen, which I was on at the time (light spot treatment maybe once every three days, almost no cleanser and absolutely no moisturizer) and my skin / acne looked better than it had in a whole year of religious cleansing, applying BP and moisturizing. Most importantly, I stopped getting cysts, which I had been getting consistently while applying BP. It felt very liberating... unfortunately I ended up royally screwing up my diet and breaking out again (I think it was due to starting unnecessary vitamin supplements of some kind), panicking because I thought the breakout might be due to lack of BP (completely unfounded, I had gone four months without using BP and now a breakout?), and jumping headfirst into what I thought was a "healthy" regimen of BP, urine therapy and vitamin supplements. From there, my skin only got worse. Around two or three weeks ago I recognized the main problem and cut out the vitamins, albeit continuing cleanser and BP. Since then, my mouth region acne has been slowly healing, but now I really want my skin to heal in more ways than just having cysts vanish.
Anyway... I started this on Sunday and I'm going to keep updating once a week, to avoid unnecessary stress. Basically all I do is rinse my water with lukewarm shower water every morning, and then leave it alone for the rest of the day, unless I happen to exercise and sweat a lot, in which case I'll do another rinse. Frequency is really not that important however, all that matters is the fact that it's temperate water and ONLY water - no hands, no cleansers, scrubs or chemicals. I'm not expecting magic and I'm not expecting instant results. I'll keep at it all through the summer if I need to. This has worked for people and I want to see if it will work for me. If not, that's fine... I'll go back to cleansers. Perhaps they are a necessary evil.
I attached a couple pics of the current state of my face... they don't do reality justice though, as the light diffuses most of the redness. I used a contrast filter on the pic of my T-zone just to show the extent of my dermatitis, as it was barely visible in the original pic.
Edited by whathavewehere, 12 November 2012 - 08:55 PM.
