Fantastic post! You clearly know what you're talking about. I agree with the majority of what you've written here and glad to see you're guiding people on the right path.

For me, it wasn't until I adopted a good diet and avoided processed foods that I managed to cure my acne condition, not surpress; people can learn alot from this post. Keep up the great work

Regards

Andy

Bump. just to keep thread from being archived.

@alternativista, don't know if I should post here, sorry in advance (I can't direct message you). I've seen you post a lot and have solid knowledge about diet and acne. The thing is, in the last 7 months I cut out completely from my diet sugar, dairy, chips, fast-food, oceanic fish, high glycemic index food, corn, eggs, bananas, grapes, nuts, almonds, soda etc. and it's going great. I also think I might breakout from chicken (hormone filled?). I had severe acne and now I'm 6 months off the antibiotics, my face and back are clear and the worst breakout is something like 3-4 cysts that go away in less than 5 days (as opposed to constantly having 30 40 cysts that either never went away, or it would take a month or two to completely vanish). I am scheduled in a month to start Laser Genesis treatment and my question is: Do you think I'll have to keep this diet my whole life? I am 25 years old by the way. A test for food allergies and intolerances would help me? Thanks for your posts, have a nice day

thanks for sharing this

@alternativista, don't know if I should post here, sorry in advance (I can't direct message you). I've seen you post a lot and have solid knowledge about diet and acne. The thing is, in the last 7 months I cut out completely from my diet sugar, dairy, chips, fast-food, oceanic fish, high glycemic index food, corn, eggs, bananas, grapes, nuts, almonds, soda etc. and it's going great. I also think I might breakout from chicken (hormone filled?). I had severe acne and now I'm 6 months off the antibiotics, my face and back are clear and the worst breakout is something like 3-4 cysts that go away in less than 5 days (as opposed to constantly having 30 40 cysts that either never went away, or it would take a month or two to completely vanish). I am scheduled in a month to start Laser Genesis treatment and my question is: Do you think I'll have to keep this diet my whole life? I am 25 years old by the way. A test for food allergies and intolerances would help me? Thanks for your posts, have a nice day

I would try adding things back into your diet especially things like eggs, fish, nuts. Never drink soda or other sugary drinks again. And yes, I would try testing for intolerances if you have the funds. I suspect that cystic acne tends to be caused by an intolerance. For me it's citrus.

I would try adding things back into your diet especially things like eggs, fish, nuts. Never drink soda or other sugary drinks again. And yes, I would try testing for intolerances if you have the funds. I suspect that cystic acne tends to be caused by an intolerance. For me it's citrus.

Thank you. Spoke to my derm a few days ago and he said I have to keep this diet for my whole life, which I just can't fathom. I could do with a balanced diet, eating the stuff I didn't eat here and there, but completely cutting out all that food can't be right, it must be a way to cure this disease, other than having that strict diet for all my life.

 

I would try adding things back into your diet especially things like eggs, fish, nuts. Never drink soda or other sugary drinks again. And yes, I would try testing for intolerances if you have the funds. I suspect that cystic acne tends to be caused by an intolerance. For me it's citrus.

 

Thank you. Spoke to my derm a few days ago and he said I have to keep this diet for my whole life, which I just can't fathom. I could do with a balanced diet, eating the stuff I didn't eat here and there, but completely cutting out all that food can't be right, it must be a way to cure this disease, other than having that strict diet for all my life.

Did he say why? Where do you live? What kind of doctor is he?

Did he say why? Where do you live? What kind of doctor is he?

Dermatologist, Romania. He said it's because of my genes I have to keep a hypo insulinic (spell?) diet for all my life, which doesn't make any sense, because I'm sure there have been thousands and thousands of people with the same kind of acne and genes as mine, that got cured without keeping a diet. Truth be told, my skin has been very clear in the last 9 months or so, the worst breakout I had was 3 weeks ago and I'm sure it was from drinking too much orange juice (Pfanner, no added sugar), for two weeks straight (more than 1L/day). I had like 6-7 cysts that went away in a matter of 7-10 days, far from what I had when my acne was at it's worst. The problem is, I don't know how my body will react if I start eating even low quantities of pasta, pizza, rice, eggs for example. Best case scenario would be keeping a balanced diet and hoping the Azythromyicin (finished a 4 month course, 6 months ago + Skinoren) did his job, while I get rid of the scars.

 

Did he say why? Where do you live? What kind of doctor is he?

 

Dermatologist, Romania. He said it's because of my genes I have to keep a hypo insulinic (spell?) diet for all my life, which doesn't make any sense, because I'm sure there have been thousands and thousands of people with the same kind of acne and genes as mine, that got cured without keeping a diet. Truth be told, my skin has been very clear in the last 9 months or so, the worst breakout I had was 3 weeks ago and I'm sure it was from drinking too much orange juice (Pfanner, no added sugar), for two weeks straight (more than 1L/day). I had like 6-7 cysts that went away in a matter of 7-10 days, far from what I had when my acne was at it's worst. The problem is, I don't know how my body will react if I start eating even low quantities of pasta, pizza, rice, eggs for example. Best case scenario would be keeping a balanced diet and hoping the Azythromyicin (finished a 4 month course, 6 months ago + Skinoren) did his job, while I get rid of the scars.

Yeah, I knew he couldn't be an American doctor.

Every human should avoid high glycemic diet habits. But that doesn't mean you can never eat a high glycemic/insulinemic food. It's the whole meal that matters, (By meal I mean sum of all you eat/drink at any given time so also means drinks & snacks between meals.)

And that certainly doesn't explain why you shouldn't eat eggs & fish which are low glycemic. BTW, When you drink orange juice, you might as well be drinking sugar, so it should be on your list of things not to do. And if you do, make it part of a meal that includes fiber & fat to reduce the glycemic impact of the meal. Like eggs.

The antibiotics aren't going to cause a permanent or even temporary change to your acne prone tendencies. Once you stop taking them, whatever they did for you will stop.

Also, a healthy diet won't 'cure' this disease or any other. It controls the disease or condition. Because it's the lack of healthy diet, exercise, sleep etc that causes the conditions to develop.

thanks for your answers. I think my safest bet is to keep this strict diet for the time matter and see a few different dermatologists, in hopes that maybe I can have some sort of laser treatment (and maybe topical), before I go back to eating everything and see what happens

Alternativista,

First of all thank you so much for all the information you are willing to share with us all. I find it very useful.

You say your main trigger was citrus (oranges), I might have missed it in this thread, but how did you come to know this was a big factor in causing your acne? By ways of experimentation or a food intolerance test?

Alternativista,

 

First of all thank you so much for all the information you are willing to share with us all. I find it very useful.

You say your main trigger was citrus (oranges), I might have missed it in this thread, but how did you come to know this was a big factor in causing your acne? By ways of experimentation or a food intolerance test?

Citrus was the trigger for my severe cystic acne. I had grotesquely oily skin and other kinds of acne as well. And I figured it out by luck. One winter, when citrus is plentiful & cheap and I started having it as an afternoon snack each day expecting to be good for my skin, my skin got much worse. Then, a coworker who had watched my and my cystic acne filled skin eat oranges everyday for weeks without saying a word, came in one morning ranting that she had 2 big glasses of orange juice for weekend breakfast and now her chin was broken out. She otherwise had perfect skin so she was able to easily figure out the connection for her. I'm still annoyed that she new this and didn't mentioned it as a suggestion for me. And it was over 20 years ago.

 

Alternativista,

 

First of all thank you so much for all the information you are willing to share with us all. I find it very useful.

You say your main trigger was citrus (oranges), I might have missed it in this thread, but how did you come to know this was a big factor in causing your acne? By ways of experimentation or a food intolerance test?

Citrus was the trigger for my severe cystic acne. I had grotesquely oily skin and other kinds of acne as well. And I figured it out by luck. One winter, when citrus is plentiful & cheap and I started having it as an afternoon snack each day expecting to be good for my skin, my skin got much worse. Then, a coworker who had watched my and my cystic acne filled skin eat oranges everyday for weeks without saying a word, came in one morning ranting that she had 2 big glasses of orange juice for weekend breakfast and now her chin was broken out. She otherwise had perfect skin so she was able to easily figure out the connection for her. I'm still annoyed that she new this and didn't mentioned it as a suggestion for me. And it was over 20 years ago.

Great. I can understand the annoyance as well! What is your perspective on food intolerance testing? Do you think they are accurate? I find it very difficult to find out what foods I might be intolerant for.

fwiw I asked 3 dermatologists about getting tested for food allergies and intolerances and they all said they are useless for acne.

fwiw I asked 3 dermatologists about getting tested for food allergies and intolerances and they all said they are useless for acne.

American Dermatologists, right?

 

Alternativista,

 

First of all thank you so much for all the information you are willing to share with us all. I find it very useful.

You say your main trigger was citrus (oranges), I might have missed it in this thread, but how did you come to know this was a big factor in causing your acne? By ways of experimentation or a food intolerance test?

Citrus was the trigger for my severe cystic acne. I had grotesquely oily skin and other kinds of acne as well. And I figured it out by luck. One winter, when citrus is plentiful & cheap and I started having it as an afternoon snack each day expecting to be good for my skin, my skin got much worse. Then, a coworker who had watched my and my cystic acne filled skin eat oranges everyday for weeks without saying a word, came in one morning ranting that she had 2 big glasses of orange juice for weekend breakfast and now her chin was broken out. She otherwise had perfect skin so she was able to easily figure out the connection for her. I'm still annoyed that she new this and didn't mentioned it as a suggestion for me. And it was over 20 years ago.

 

Great. I can understand the annoyance as well! What is your perspective on food intolerance testing? Do you think they are accurate? I find it very difficult to find out what foods I might be intolerant for.

Depends on what kind. it can't be the standard test for IgE antibodies that cause an immediate response and is all most allergists & doctors care about. It has to look for other antibodies and other inflammatory responses.

fwiw I asked 3 dermatologists about getting tested for food allergies and intolerances and they all said they are useless for acne.

 

fwiw I asked 3 dermatologists about getting tested for food allergies and intolerances and they all said they are useless for acne.

 

American Dermatologists, right?

Nope, romanians.

I'm quite sceptic concerning dermatologists and acne.

What could be common allergen /intolerance food besides sugar, refined carbs, gluten, dairy and citrus?  🙂

probably eggs as well

What is good to do for getting rid of blackheads and clogged pores?

Hi just looking at this thread again but it seems that most of the hyperlinks are broken and lead to the error:

Sorry, there is a problem

While most of the hyperlinks in the food recipe thread are leading back to itself.

Would I be correct in assuming that most of the links that link to acne.org are broken and would have to be fixed somehow?

On 3/30/2016 at 5:26 PM, beromagu said:

Hi just looking at this thread again but it seems that most of the hyperlinks are broken and lead to the error:

Sorry, there is a problem

The page you requested does not exist

While most of the hyperlinks in the food recipe thread are leading back to itself.

Would I be correct in assuming that most of the links that link to acne.org are broken and would have to be fixed somehow?

Yes. Every time they update the server software links get broken & other weirdness happens. I used to fix them, but don't haven't had time lately. Sorry about that. Most of the content i.e. the many ways diet affects acne: inflammation, liver, thyroid, sebum quality, food intolerance, etc is in the first couple of pages. So you can just scroll through.

That's too bad about the Food & recipe thread. It's been archived so can't be fixed. But many were created by me & you can find them by looking for my topics . http://www.acne.org/messageboard/profile/54738-alternativista/?tab=forums_topic And searches might find the others.

On 3/9/2016 at 9:17 PM, holdingontohope said:

What is good to do for getting rid of blackheads and clogged pores?

The only thing that ever worked for me is oil cleansing.

I know I've raved about this in other threads, but I don't think I included it here. Look into LOW HISTAMINE DIET & LIFESTYLE people! I will link some of my older posts in my signature in case you have questions.

Hello, I had very problematicskin until I had a baby, so here are some tips that were useful to me:
- change your pillow sheets as much as you can, cause at night you sweat and your face is the one that suffers
- always use a clean towel when
- watch out for what you eat and drink
- vitamins - you can't take enough vitamins through food
- when you exercise always have a clean towel next to you, and as soon as you finish wash your face
there are milliontechnics and tips, but these are some basic ones that really helped me.

So for the last couple of weeks i eat  loads of fresh, healthy food and i drink more water. The strange thing is: now there are whiteheads all over my face Is it because my skin need to get used to the healthy stuff?