remyhelps123

I have tried drinking green tea in the past. I drank cans and cans of Arizona green tea thinking it was helping my skin, but it was absolutely doing the opposite. There is so much sugar in those things but I didn't even realize because I was young and didn't care to really look at the fine print. The sugar spiked my insulin levels which then stirred up inflammation in my skin and whammo-zammo I had pimples up the ying-yang.

 

I tried real green tea in 2011 with little results. It tasted horrible and seemed to not really do much for my skin, so I ended up stopping the green tea after a while and my skin returned to its usual state of zitty-zitty-bang-bang.

 

Last month I gave in and tried green tea again. The most natural kind I could find. And I made sure it was DECAFFEINATED this time based on what I have seen and heard in my many days of creeping around the internet and hearing about how caffeine can really aggravate acne.

 

My skin looks amazing! I'm shocked and happy and feel like others should know about this simple remedy that also fights back against cancer and free radicals (which age your skin in the long run, so one would think that drinking this will also help keep you looking younger)! I drink three cups of decaffeinated natural-as-can-be green tea that I buy from Wal-Mart every day and it has honestly made a shocking improvement in my skin. My confidence is returning and I feel like I'm getting my life back...!

 

I believe it helps so much because it keeps the inflammation down as well as detoxes the body. It's healthy, cheap, and totally works!

Just felt like I would share this bit of information so that others might find some saving grace and happier days.

I've had Restylane done twice. Once in 2009 and once in 2010 for some indented areas on my face from cystic acne I had badly in 2008. I have to say that it worked amazingly both times, and the results lasted for quite a while.

I had a lot of acne in December of 2011 and me being the foolish person I am, I thought I would try to give myself my own microdermabrasion treatments every day with a scrub that said I could do just that. Bad idea. It basically ripped off healing lesions and marks and the collagen growth in each of these healing wounds was interrupted and halted. I pretty much gave myself an array of scarring and still kick myself for what I helped make happen.

But this year.. 2012.. I have been dermarolling those scars. I dermarolled 6 or 7 times in the past 10 months, which I felt was a good amount considering all that I've found about dermarolling being the most helpful when you dermaroll and wait as -long- as possible before the next treatment. These people dermarolling every week and every DAY are seeing swelling. That's why they think they're seeing results. After you dermaroll your face gets swollen for a few days and plumps up slightly, and it may make some scars look a lot better.. But this process is a traumatic one for the collagen in the skin and it won't even fully make the collagen heal and renew itself until the healing process truly begins approximately 6 MONTHS after the dermaroll. This swelling is also basically a form of inflammation in your skin and if constantly done it can apparently cause cancer, as well as rough ugly texture because you would be consistently damaging your skin and not giving it any time to heal. I've read several posts on other sites from wise people who have dermarolled and then made sure to have 6 to 10 months of patience before the next roll and I applaud them for their ability to wait so long. They've spoken a great deal about how the best results show up around month 6 and 7 after the treatment. I feel that this is true since I first tried to dermaroll back in 2010 on a scar (small indented) that is very much smaller now.. Makes me truly think that having waited between 2010 and 2012 on the dermarolling is what provided the collagen in that area to build up and make the scar practically invisible. It worked. It just took time.

I dermarolled several times in the beginning of this year and I tried to wait four weeks in between treatments. It didn't really show any real results that I could notice so in August 2012 I decided to roll one final time and throw in the towel until March of 2013. This will hopefully give my skin the time to build up the collagen that I've poked and prodded to renew.

I'm also planning to get Restylane done in the areas of the scars. I've read some interesting things about collagen apparently being stimulated somewhat by these fillers and if you're dermarolling and you inject the dermarolled areas one would think that it would help improve the collagen regrowth process. The effects of the Restylane are also fairly instant so there would already be great results there to enjoy, but having done the dermarolling prior to this could truly mean that your skin can heal scarring while the scarring is "hidden" by the Restylane's plumping and filling. Essentially healing the problem and masking it at the same time.

When I first got Restylane injected in 2009 I vividly remember having the areas be a little pudgy and I had to massage the injected drops so that it would spread around in the areas it was injected. It horrified me because I thought I wouldn't massage correctly or I wouldn't do it enough.. but after two days and just a bit of simple massaging the results were unparallelled. My face was plump and firm in the indented areas where cysts had made the scars that they had. I had a huge confidence boost that totally made the $500 for the treatment feel well spent. I had it done again in 2010 for the same areas and now with these new scars that I've made I'm sure that the treatment will help once again when they're injected sometime this winter.

I've read about how lasers don't provide many results and often even make problems worse by adding new scars or funky redness. They're also incredibly expensive treatments to have done and they basically do what dermarolling does already! It's all about stimulating collagen and that's what lasers like fraxel try to do. That is the point of dermarolling. To injure an area and trick the body into thinking it needs to heal that area and bump up the collagen. Why would people want to spend thousands on laser treatments when you can buy a dermaroller for $40 on Amazon and perform as many treatments as you want? It can truly yield some awesome results at a fraction of the price of laser treatments.

My girlfriend is even studying to become an esthetician who specializes in laser treatments so if that doesn't show how strongly I feel about lasers then I don't know what will haha.

I guess what I'm trying to say is.. I feel that dermarolling in very slow moderation (approximately 7 months between each treatment) combined with the treatment of Restylane (which has never given me any problems and has provided instant results).. is truly a genuine strategy to combat acne scarring.

I will continue to update this page every few months to add in details about my experience with this technique..
Hopefully others out there will consider trying this out too!

Hello everybody. This is my first post here, because I felt that I should finally share a regimen that has been working very well for me. It's a combination of different strategies, not just a "wear a zip-loc baggy while sleeping and acne is cured" sort of thing.

I started getting acne at age 15. I'm 21 now and only within these past few months have I found my own true defensive way of keeping it at bay, since it's not really "curable" and only "treatable" after all. The acne at age 15 was slight, but it got cystic around age 18 thanks to overloading on soy and whey protein in the midst of my "muscle-gain-extravaganza" (I'm a guy by the way). While I was trying to get "buff" I also managed to get the worst acne I'd ever had, so I took accutane for a few months (not the full course) but ended up stopping it prematurely because of all the side effects (bones feeling weak, hairloss, chapped lips, nosebleeds constantly, etc..). Since then I still have had acne, just not cystic any longer, mainly an amount ranging from slight to moderate in severity.. I tried everything after accutane in the hopes I could find a new miracle cure that WASN'T a chemotherapy drug. And some people say "oh I've tried everything" but I really did try everything. Stopping sugar intake, going vegan for months, cutting out meat, acupuncture, putting urine on my face.. the list goes on and on..

In 2011 I realized that my diet DID impact my face. Now that might not be the case for everyone, but I tested it with certain foods (as well as the vegan lifestyle) and found many interesting reactions after several different attempts (to make sure it truly was the foods and wasn't just my acne flaring up for other reasons). Alocholic beverages, milk products, anything with soy, sugary processed junk.. So many things that I liked that were definitely making my acne stick around..

So I devised a plan that combined everything I'd learned (the hard way) into one fool-proof lifestyle... Here is my regimen, and call it crazy if you'd like, but it has cleared me up in a RADICAL way that I never thought possible:

Morning: Wash face with water and salycic acid, then apply oil-free moisturizer.
Night: Wash face with water and apply benzoyl peroxide 5%, then apply oil-free moisturizer.

Diet: Cup of carrots x2 daily, salmon/fish for lunch, raisins, rice (even rice krispies works), as much water as possible, chili with tortilla corn chips. This is what I eat every day.

Pills: Vitamin D3. Zinc.

Hormonal Strategy: I used to partake in sexual activities in one way or another every day, now I just limit that to twice a week.

Why I believe my strategy works: The diet is a little strange, but it works nicely. The carrots are HUGELY effective because they contain natural (and high) amounts of vitamin A. The salmon contains Omega-3 and Vitamin D. The raisins (though often high in sugar) are very nutritious and there are several posts on acne.org that discuss how helpful they can be against acne. Rice (via steamed rice or rice krispies) is something light in sugar and also free of wheat substances, which have been shown to cause breakouts because of the gluten content. Water (no pop or alcohol) is a given, and is great at flushing out the toxins within the body. Chili with tortilla chips is probably the unhealthy part of my day, but I'm a guy and I don't want to be a stick, plus the fact that I always use tortilla chips made with corn and not with any added flavoring probably helps a little as well. The hormonal strategy is usually what is the most difficult, but often the most important. I've done tests to see if sexual activities increased acne and sure enough, it did for me in major ways. Limiting it to only a few times a week is difficult, but has done wonders for keeping my face clear.. Basically because sexual interactions get the hormones out of control, which results in your face showcasing some nice pimples as a result. Not just sexual interactions with other people either, I'm talking about self-oriented interaction as well for those of you guys wondering.

This may sound ridiculous and stupid, but I've seen crazy results. You don't have to try this step-by-step if you don't want to, but I really think that just trying one aspect of it may help you. Adding Zinc to your regimen. Cutting out dairy products. Eating carrots twice a day. Just hoping that people will take away something from this that could prove to be helpful for them, because I know that this way of life has helped keep my acne away.