darkheart

Unfortunately depression is much more than an emotional state. It's a mental illness in a way, it grows deep into you and doesn't let you go forward. You can't just shake it off by thinking "Well, nothing I can do about my acne, so I'll just put a smile on my face and live happily". And I'm pretty sure many of us are dealing with a lot more than just anxiety about our skins. Some of us had to literally say no to their dreams (including me) and not because the lack of self-confidence but because of the physicall impossibility. Alright, time to move on you'd say. But everyone has their our pace and understanding when they're done grieving and can deal with life again. I was pretending to myself, that I'm one of the strong ones but it fell flat. 

The truth is that you won't be OK if you haven't glued all the pieces of yourself together. The spectacle will be over and the consequences - devastating.
People need to be true to themselves.  

Yes, I agree. It's easy for a person with stable/normal mental health to say "just put a smile on your face and forget about your depression" but to a person with a genuine mental health disorder that's absolutely impossible. Depression is not an attitude choice - there's a difference in feeling bummed out and being clinically depressed. Two completely different things.

I don't think people understand that how you cope with things in your life is directly related to your mental health which is very complex.

I will never complain about my acne ever again after seeing this. My God! now this is cystic acne! - what I have is just small potatoes compared to this. I don't know how this poor girl could cope quite frankly, I'd lose my mind if my skin looked like this.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=wp5iy5JJqDA

Eliminating products almost always leads to this crazy obssesion of scrutinizing and overanalizing every little thing you ate, linking it to your acne... I'm tired of always avoiding everything, started eating normally (normal doesn't mean junk food), and guess what, no negative reaction in my acne.

Amen sister. Obsessing over diet absolutely leads to some type of an eating disorder no doubt - at one point I was terrified to eat anything but damn juiced up carots. I went crazy. I was even afraid to eat certain vegetables or fruit because I was scared it would trigger a reaction inside my body leading to cystic acne.

Enough is enough. I still eat really healthy and dairy and gluten are at the bottom of the list of what I consume on a daily basis but I'm not obsessive anymore because it's just unnecessary. Also I don't want to relapse into an E.D again at this time either.

It's all up to you, I don't force anyone to make those changes, actually I was reluctant to do them myself because that's A LOT of sacrifice, in the end I was starting to have scars all over my face. Red, indented. Day after day looking at myself in the mirror, watching all my confidence being ripped apart to shreds.

 

Then this one day, I was at the subway and someone took one look at me, just one look, I saw the disgust, turned away from me like I was a monster and in just 2 seconds I felt like I was the most horrific person in the world and that I didn't deserved to be loved by anyone not even by myself. I got back home and I said to myself this shit has to end! and I will do whatever it takes to overcome it. Now you see the problem wasn't that I didn't know what was causing my acne. For several years, all day everyday on the internet trying to figure out what was causing it. You already know what it is, we both know what is, it's that initiative, that huge leap that scares us. Or at least what scared me. That, intuitive habbit that makes you hang on to things you know tastes so good and also the thought of if I eliminate this and that from my diet then I'll have nothing left to eat, trust me there's a lot of alternative good food to eat.

 

Your incredibly long list of routines on your signatures? I had the same things, I would buy every single over-counter thing that could possibly work in the pharmacy aloe vera, honey, cleansers, morning scrubs, you name it. I spend so much time and money, and it just wouldn't get better. And when you look at those beautiful faces walking on the streets and the shopping mall, you think of how unfair it is, why do they have flawless faces and not me, why!?. So let me tell you this: you can make a pimple go away with benzoyl peroxide but you can't stop it from coming back unless your body is detoxified because the food poison will make it resurface again and again, and again. 

 

Today I can look at people not in the face, but in the eyes and start smiling again and all thanks to natural diet and treatments. And deep down you know I am not lying because natural treatments cannot make you worse if anything they'll make you better. Again I am not asking you to make that kind of sacrifice because I've done it and it's a lot of work. I am only asking you one thing: when your acne doesn't get better in six months or a year or two years. Just go back on the holistic nutrition forum history way at the back and read what I posted above initially. That will be the only thing I ask of you today.

 

I am moving on with my life now, I did all I can here and my job is done, good luck and keep well,

 

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Don't ever give up, sincerely,

 

Shield of Faith

Many of us *already* eat tremendously healthy because we have acne and desperately cling to a shred of hope that our healthy diets will pay off eventually, but we don't see any improvement.

I have had acne since 1999 and since then I have stuck to a rigorously strict healthy diet. For years and I mean YEARS I was raw vegan - didn't cheat once. I avoided all dairy, Casein, Gluten, processed foods and ate nothing but garden vegetables, took a large array of supplements and teas yet I still had full blown acne.

I am tired of you people saying we have acne because we stuff sh*t inside our bodies and don't know how to live or eat properly. You are wrong! I eat healthier than at least 90% of the damn population and so do a lot of these people on these boards. Acne comes about because of genetic predisposition and hormones - depending on the "strain" diet will either influence for the better or it won't make any impact on the acne severity at all.

There is no cure for acne. There is only remission through therapy or one fine day you finally "grow out" of the disorder. Vitamin D has been linked to improving insulin resistance (especially in women with PCOS and such) so I can see it perhaps with prolonged exposure "alleviating" acne symptoms in some women but not curing them. I can bet money your acne wasn't severe.

Anything is fine as long as you don't think about it. Which is harder than it sounds.

 

 

Hmm...not sure this is the greatest advice i've ever heard...

 

 

Eating foods that are highly anti-infllamatory is smart.  And doing things like balancing your omega 3 to 6 ratio is also smart, as this helps greatly with inflammation as well.  Drinking green smoothies is an excellent way to get nutrient dense greens into your diet, and there is a whole thread on this in the nutrition section.  

 

Eating cleaner, as in without refined sugar/refined flour/processed foods/hight GI meals/crappy vegetable oils and their horrible omega 3 to  6 ratios...  will help with hormone regulation, as there will be less strain on your liver to filter out crap.  This can free it up to focus on what it should be doing which is hormone regulation/blood filtration (amongst other functions).  

 

Some people have allergic reactions to certain foods too.  And many members report great success eliminating dairy and gluten from their diet.  Others claim it made no difference.  Some trial and error is involved, but there are some things you could absolutely be doing now like eating nutrient dense/anti-inflammatory foods and balancing out your omega 3 to 6 ratio.  Supplementing with vitamin D might not hurt either, but it needs to be from a whole food derived source.  You could take 50,000 IUs of synthetic vitamin D and not get the same results as you would be taking 2000 IUs from a whole food derived supplement.  Obviously if you can get sun exposure that would be optimal, but if not, a supplement might be the way to go

True acne vulgaris has nothing to do with diet. Acne is a hereditary disease, end of story.

So sick and tired of hearing this garbage from people like you. Acne is rare in the general population and most people don't eat the healthiest or don't diet yet acne remains fairly rare in adults over 25. Everything comes down to genetics.

I know where you're at. I strongly trust my God and love Him to no end, but sometimes it hurts me so much that I get mad at Him and blame Him for this. I've said awful things about Him that I regret.

 

I believe part of the reason I have acne is for me to be taught to focus more on who I am as a person inside than my outer appearance.

I also believe that I have acne so I can help someone in the future who is going through the struggles I am.

After getting over the angry, bitter parts of it, I am starting to see the good sides to it as well (yes, there are good sides, I promise).

 

I have spent so much time obsessing over my acne that I have been wasting precious time of my life that I could be doing something amazing.

 

Acne sucks and it tears your self-esteem down, but even though it feels like it, it doesn't limit what you can do.

You learn to live with it and ignore the people around you who have nothing better to do with their lives than worry about your acne problems.

 

<3

No, you have acne because of genetics and hormones - not because "God" is trying to teach you how to focus on inner beauty or how to become compassionate. Man oh man are you ever American.

Retaliate? no,no,no. I'm only saying truly nodular cystic acne does NOT "respond" to topical therapy as it is very deep in there and literally one forms after the other (based upon hormonal chemistry). It's unstoppable - I had it.

Honestly I would consider taking Accutane at a low dose. If you experience any "terrible" side effects while taking it you can go off of it immediately. Do you really want to be taking Pills, BP's and using creams for the rest of your adult life? With taking Accutane there is a 60% chance (or even higher) that you'll never have to deal with acne again. I know multiple people that have taken Acccutane (In the real world) and they're absolutely fine (no health problems) with beautiful clear gleaming skin.

I've been on Spiro since 2011 and it's only about 70% effective as I still get acne on my body but my face is fairly clear but like you, my body doesn't tolerate the drug all that well. I get terrible cluster headaches (that I never had before) am terribly lethargic and at times feel a bit dizzy. For this reason, despite my extreme fear of Accutane (just like you) I am thinking of finally taking it. I figure if I get any of the terrible side effects that I'm afraid of developing I'll go off the drug immediately. But it wouldn't hurt to try as I could finally get the acne bug out of my hair for good.

As my endocrinologist says I am not going to grow out of this (I'm 24 now and have had acne since I was 10) and you probably won't either for a very long time.

I have another one:

 

"Stop wearing thin clothes in cold weather... Because you don't wear a hat, you get the pimples"

 

Apparently, my chin pimples come out when I don't wear a hat...

 

 

I completely understand the frustration!

What? Ha! that makes zero sense. People are dopey. I found that if I told people that I had PCOS as the reason I had acne (even though I don't have the syndrome) they're like "Oh, my sister has that, I'm sorry" ect. - and they leave me alone. People will get off your case about acne and stop accusing you of eating a "bad diet" and such if you tell them you have a medical condition I notice.

I developed acne on my face and body at 10-11 years old (really badly on my back). And I can't for the life of me ever remember being bothered by it at the time. I still did what I could to treat it, I applied my retin-a gel at night time and used Proactiv as my skin care routine (back in those days) but I never actually remember caring about it that much. I never cried once - at all.

People assumed because I was a girl that was affected by varrying degrees (it waxed and waned) of fairly severe acne on my face and body that I must have a low self esteem and be in some kind of emotional pain but this was not the case at all.

I was a tomboy who wore boys clothes and didn't care what I looked like. I didn't feel like a *girl* somehow, I felt closer to a boy as though I had more of a male brain and wasn't as influenced by emotions over something like "appearance" as the other girls in my class dealing with ane. They wore heavy pancake makeup to school and bawled in the bathroom if someone said anything about their skin - I didn't give a sh*t. I remember some guy in middle school turning around and trying to insult me about my skin and I laughed in his face.. he just looked back at me "puzzled" - Like you're a girl you're supposed to be upset about that.

I don't know, maybe I'm just an alien. Can anyone else relate?

I'm 24 now and my acne is fairly under control with spironolactone. I do what I can to treat it but never got hysterical when my skin "got really bad" or hid in my home (which a lot of people do apparently?) I'd just go out without makeup with some Retin-A or lotion on my face without a care what people thought of me.