Hi everyone,
I've been lurking on this board for over a decade and I've been on Dans BP regime for a few times in my life and while it keeps things at bay I've never been fully clear. Let me give you little info about myself: I'm a 32 year old female and I haven't been on the pill for roughly 8 years. I was pretty clear on the pill but after coming off of it, acne became so bad that I've had a course of low dose accutane. My skin cleared rapidly but roughly 6 months after quitting acne returned (mild-moderate) and stayed with me since then.
Anyway, due to painful, heavy periods my gyn put me on vitex 3 months ago and I've taken it religiously ever since. Roughly one month ago my skin started to become crazily oily. So oily that I can literally keep blotting it every hour to not look as if i put butter on my face. I haven't had that before. usually my skin used to be dry & sensitive... so this was a big shock to me. At rougly the same time my hair became very greasy. I have to wash daily now to maintain a halfway normal look but usually it's already oily in the evening after washing in the morning... I haven't changed anything in my usual routin besides switching from Dan's method to Epiduo, (week 7 now) which I use once per day. I'm also experiencing random breakouts in areas I've never broken out before but the worst is all the oil. I feel like a grease-monster. 
At first i thought Epiduo was to blame for the suddenly so oily skin but my derm assured me that it is supposed to make the skin dry, not oily so i started looking elsewhere and towards Vitex...
I've also experienced random anxiety episodes. Fast beating heart, nausea and panic attack like symptoms that appear for no reason... honestly it scares the shit out of me and I don't know if it's my hormones being out of place due to the vitex. The first two cycles on vitex were normal, even though Vitex did nothing for my heavy bleeding and pain. The current cycle however is a total mess. I usually ovulate at around day 14, now i didn't ovlate till day 22. I'm doing NFP and that's why i know my know what my cycles usually look like. I'm currently wondering if the vitex is the root cause for all of this.
Seriously if you have ANY input or suggestions please share them with me.
I wanted Vitex to work for my heavy bleeding and cramps so badly and maybe fix my mild-moderate acne on the way as well but now I really don't know what to do anymore. My actual plan was to keep taking vitex for a total of 6 months to see if the heavy bleeding and cramps stop but if it really causes all of this then I don't think I should continue.
What's your opinion on this? Have you had a similar experience by any chance?
What would you do? Anything would help...
Thank you so much in advance.
I think you might be right about vitex/hormones being the cause. I can't say for sure, but that's what I am leaning towards. Seeing as your were clear while on birth control, and then the effects of accutane didn't last. Plus you are also experiencing greasy hair & anxiety, which wouldn't be caused by a topical acne treatment like epiduo.
I experienced something similar about 2 years ago, though for different reasons. I was 22 and had been enjoying clear, normal skin for many years since taking accutane in high school. Then out of no where my skin and hair became SUPER greasy just like you've described. I also started getting bad breakouts that were in completely different areas than I used to break-out when I was a teen. It was just like you described - I went from having skin that was normal (even sometimes dry) to having to blot my face every hour. My hair would also look greasy the same day I washed it - even right after I washed it sometimes! Like it would look gross even before it was completely dry and would have this weird, waxy looking texture.
I never 100% confirmed why this happened, but I am pretty sure it was because of some extreme changes that I made to my diet/lifestyle about 6 months before all of that happened. I think those changes screwed up my hormones. Why do I think so? Because I went on birth control and within 3 months of it balancing my hormones my acne had cleared. I also changed my diet back to normal and slowly my hair and skin stopped being so greasy too. Hormones are really tricky... They can be influenced by so many random things and it's also really hard to tell when they are causing a problem.I saw a derm and two doctors when this was going on with me and no one could offer any possible reason why I just suddenly 'got oily hair and skin'. I even got blood work done a few times and it always came back "normal". But then I went on hormonal birth control and half of my problem got solved within a few months...
I know our situations are very different, but I wanted to at least give my two cents because I remember being so frustrated when this was happening to me because my doctors weren't really helpful and I couldn't find much online either. It was really just me doing trial-and-error and figuring things out as I went along.