1 reply to this topic

[bkhn87]

Hello everyone! New to the boards. I actually posted the following in the adult acne boards and a member suggested I post it here instead. This is my acne history:

"I am a 24 year old, South Asian female and I had the perfect skin up until I was 23. By perfect I mean people would stop me on the street and tell me my skin was beautiful. I used to get one medium sized pimple maybe twice a year. It was always a strange occurrence whenever that would happen. Life was great!

This time last year I started noticing small breakouts on the sides of my faces, right under my temple and next to my ear. They turned into blemishes and the pimples just kept persisting. A year later, the area of blemishes has become larger. What I am thankful for is that it is ONLY in these areas. I will get some pimples on my forehead and a few on my cheeks but those blemishes have gone away and my skin has remained relatively clear.

Diet and Exercise:
Now I drink at least 64 oz of water a day without fail. I have at least 5 servings of fruits and veggies everyday. I never eat fatty foods like pizza, candy, and junk food. I started regularly working out four years ago and I've also kept that going. Because of this healthy change, my skin is literally glowing. My pores are very small and my complexion is fantastic - except for the acne in these specific spots. Like, how freaking weird is that? Everything screams normal. The skin on my face is super healthy except for these specific acne areas.

Skin Care:
I don't want to do too much to my skin so I've been using the Juice Beauty blemish clearing line. I wash my face with the Juice Beauty gentle and organic cleanser with a Clarisonic Mia face massager, tone with witch hazel, put on the Juice Beauty blemish clearing serum that has a little bit of salicylic acid, and moisturize with Clinique moisturizing gel. I put on a clay mask (calcium bentonite) once a week to "exfoliate."

Additional Notes:
I started wearing the headscarf about 2.5 years ago for my religion which has been a great experience! The headscarf lays on the side of my face where the acne is. I don't think the headscarf caused the acne because I had been wearing it a full year before the acne appeared. But maybe it doesn't help it either? I make sure my scarves are clean before putting them on. For the past six months, however, I've been wearing them very loosely so it barely touches my face. The acne still persists.

Furthermore, my menstrual cycle is completely normal. The pimples sometimes appear before my period but other times at random - it doesn't exactly coincide with my period.

I am taking Vitamins B12, E and 600 IU of D3. Not consistently and it's only been a week and a half. To be honest vitamins confuse the crap of out of me (there are so many!).

Maybe someone can shine some light on my method of treatment - if it's right on track and there really isn't anything else I can do or if it's not completely right and there might be more that I can do."

Anyway, I just wanted to tell my story about how I used to have the best skin ever and now its so weird. How can this happen? How can you go from such perfect skin to adult acne? I just don't get it. It's not even genetic - my parents have had clear skin all their lives. I want to solve this very naturally. I don't want to use BP (tried it and it's just a temporary fix that dries out your skin and causes premature aging). I don't want to depend on medications or cremes. I want to take care of my body and my skin and for me that means avoiding alterations inside and out.

Sorry for the long post and thank you in advance!
- bkhn

[alternativista]

I'd bet food intolerance. I used to break out at my temples, all along my hairline, jawline, back of neck and neck. It turned out to be a reaction to most citrus and it went away when I started avoiding them. I believe that different citrus caused reactions in the different areas. Because I avoided most for several years then decided to try a tangerine and got cysts at my temples, which I hadn't had for years. And while I can have lemons and Persian limes without a problem, it took me a while to figure out the cysts that I occasionally got on my neck and jaw occurred whenever I bought key limes instead. I'm not interested in doing any further testing.