Hello!

I wanted to share with all of you the cure I found for my acne. A few details about me; I am 23 years old, female, and Ive struggled with acne for 8 years- the last 2 morphing into adult cystic acne. Disclaimer: as you all know, acne is an incredibly individual disease. What works for one person may not necessarily work for another! and thats what makes the detective work of finding a cure so incredibly frustrating.

My acne cure: a combination of healthy diet changes + cleansing + release of stress + topical

Healthy Diet Changes:

I completely cut out of my diet- caffeine, alcohol, processed sugar (as well as honey and maple syrup), gluten, dairy, soy, corn, peanuts and eggs. You can read about the reasons why I decided to cut these foods out in the JJ. Virgin Diet book. My diet is primarily paleo (although I do stay away from eggs unless they are local and I still eat rice from time to time) and I try to incorporate as many raw foods into my diet as well, taking a lot of recipes from Raw Vegans and Fruitarians. Choosing local and organic foods, grass-fed beef, free-range chicken and wild fish as much as possible also helped tremendously. During the first couple of weeks (since I cut out all these foods cold turkey) I experienced serious withdrawal symptoms and it was very difficult to stay on the diet. Now, my cravings have disappeared and in addition to my acne clearing up, I have a lot more energy and Im seeing the benefits of a healthy diet in my hair and nails too! My long-term plan is to stick with this diet until my skin has been clear for several months, then I plan to add foods back in one at a time in small quantities to see if I break out again. Hopefully, if breakouts dont occur, I can include the foods Ive cut out back into my diet in very small amounts and in moderation. The other thing I need to mention about diet is the detox I experienced. The interesting thing was that the acne on my nose, cheeks, chin and lips disappeared almost immediately once I changed my diet.. however, after about 3 weeks into the diet change my forehead absolutely exploded with cystic acne. There was a tremendous amount and they hurt and itched like sores. Im not a doctor so Im not sure why this happened exactly, but I am willing to bet this was a detox symptom- my body cleansing out all the crap from my previous poor-eating habits. When this outbreak occurred I decided to help my body along the healing process with cleansing.

Cleansing:

I used several herbal remedies to help my colon, liver and kidneys along with detox. Some of these included eating raw garlic, drinking warm water with fresh squeezed lemon juice and cayenne pepper, steeping tea from cloves, black walnut leaf and wormwood (all together) and flushing out my system with water and raw sea salt (non-iodized). I also used Natures Plus Complete Body Cleanse (14 days). In my opinion, these cleanses werent absolutely necessary for my acne cure, however I do believe they helped my body speed along the process of healing. Through diet and cleansing I have learned to trust that the body does have an amazing innate ability to heal itself, we just need to get out of the way of that and feed it the building blocks and tools it needs for success.

Release of Stress:

This was another step in the process of getting out of the way of my body and giving it the tools to heal itself. Basically, I prioritized sleep as much as possible, practiced prayer and meditation as much as possible, took time to be in nature and took myself out of bad situations whenever possible.

Topical:

For me, the Mario Badescu Acne Starter Kit worked wonders in helping to clear up the disaster of cystic acne that broke out on my forehead from detoxing, about three weeks into my diet change. I continued to use this kit to help clear up old acne breakouts and scars and as of right now I am using it for maintenance. I am in the process of making the switch to a more natural product for everyday use, however, to help the skin along in healing up acne faster- this product worked wonders for me!

I hope this information may be helpful to some of you!! I know that everyones cure is different and unique to our individual bodies, but as Ive learned so much from so many other peoples stories of healing online, I hope that mine may help some of you find a piece of your own puzzle on the journey to healing as well.

Good luck!