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As suspected, the primary culprit in my last breakout was the alcohol consumption / lack of sleep. I haven't had alcohol nor a day with < 8 hours of sleep in 8 days, and in that time I have gone from 5-10 active acne legions to 1.
Databased: I do take the pills every day, although not in the regimented one per meal 3 times per day structure. I will add in the ALA and the fish oil. I had quit taking both of those when I started with the calcium blend. If that fails, I'll begin taking the boron on its own.
Overall, it is my strong feeling the calcium blend has improved my skin considerably.
Unfortunately, there are so many variables in my lifestyle that I just don't see my feedback as being all that useful to Databased or anyone else here.
I stay mostly clear by following all of databased's advice, plus eating the anti-candida diet. If I stay outside for 12 hours/day, sleep 9 hours/night, eat no gluten, very limited sugar, no oils besides olive oil, take zinc, take vitamin b complex, take the calcium blend, I stay pretty much clear. I think I do anyway, as this is so incredibly difficult that I never actually do it for more than 3 days in a row. My general observation is that the closer I come to following all of those rules, the more clear I stay. The further I get, the more likely I am to break out. On a positive note, I have added caffeine back into my life and managed to stay relatively clear despite that.
I have a personal chef who cooks 3 meals/day for me, which helps a lot. Unfortunately, he doesn't work on Sundays and I often go way off course on that day. Yesterday I ate about 4000 calories worth of corn chips, popcorn, and other junk. I can't imagine trying to eat this type while cooking on my own.
Databased: a key point where our skin is different: Even if I follow all of the daylight/sleep/zinc rules, if I eat too much gluten over the course of a few days, I am guaranteed to get 4-5 cysts. This appears to be true for cashews/pistachios as well, although the effect isn't as dramatic as with gluten.
I would like to point out that for all the hell acne has wrought on my social life, dealing with it has had positive impacts me and there is a chance I will be better off for it one day.
Acne has helped me with the following:
1) Eating a far healthier diet (probably, since no one can accurately judge healthy yet)
2) Eliminating alcohol from my life
3) Eliminating adderall from my life
4) Developing a healthy sleep cycle and relationship with the sun.
I do take the pills every day, although not in the regimented one per meal 3 times per day structure. I will add in the ALA and the fish oil. I had quit taking both of those when I started with the calcium blend. If that fails, I'll begin taking the boron on its own.
For sure, you just won't effectively digest the calcium if you don't take it with a meal, and stacking multiple pills into one meal will also lower the amount you absorb. Problems absorbing calcium are pretty well studied, the basic answer being: always take it with a meal. Whether that could coincidentally or causally hold true for the things that are bound in with the calcium in that particular pill, is not clear to me from any data I've seen.
If you get the separate boron pill, make a point of taking it at the beginning of each meal, at least to give it like a week's trial. If boron's relevance has to do with making carbs get digested correctly, then timing could be relevant.
Databased: a key point where our skin is different: Even if I follow all of the daylight/sleep/zinc rules, if I eat too much gluten over the course of a few days, I am guaranteed to get 4-5 cysts.
Would still like to see what happens if you take a separate boron pill before each meal.
I just ran an unintentional, unpleasant experiment. I got a zit one day. Didn't pay attention, since I wasn't being very religious about my sleep or diet, and had just got finished seeing how massive amount of sugar/ice cream I could eat after I found that adding boron made me as close to "normal" as I had ever seen. Next day, another zit. Life is busy, just didn't pay attention. By the end of a week, I had a full-blown outbreak. It was devastating, not to have acne, but because I couldn't figure out why. I haven't really had acne I couldn't predict in advance from my actions since I formed this basic model about how acne works. I noticed I was starting to get excessive REM in my sleep again, too, but couldn't tell why. Finally, I sat down and walked through my entire day, bit by bit, looking for something I had changed. Lo and behold, when I dumped out my pill case, I suddenly realized I had forgotten to put Vitamin B in the last time I filled it. One week without Vitamin B, and I went from clear to a half-dozen, large, red, slow-healing lesions. I immediately grabbed the Vitamin B and took one. 2 sleep cycles later, all new acne ceased, and healing started going faster, the redness dying down, etc.
It was a reminder that if, as I claim, acne is a problem of digesting, then there's a bag of nutrients you have to get right to make up the difference. Multiple ingredients can be "necessary but not sufficient", like Vitamin B clearly is for me (I took Vitamin B for years without seeing an affect on acne until I started taking/doing other things). It was also a reminder that, IME, results and problems happen damn fast. Doesn't take more than one or two sleep cycles to stop acne if you have the right ingredients or to start it if you don't.
There is nothing like waking up with a new cyst, as I did today, to provide proper motivation to follow all of the various rules of acne prevention.
Vitamin B sounds important. Can you provide me with a link to a preferred Vitamin B pill, Zinc pill, along with instructions for taking them. I have been taking a Vitamin B complex 50 one/two times per day, mostly with meals, and a 25 mg zinc pill also one/two times per day with the Vit B.
Also, I was wondering if my weight (200 pounds) indicates that perhaps I should a greater dosage than your have been recommending person.
Thanks
I do take the pills every day, although not in the regimented one per meal 3 times per day structure. I will add in the ALA and the fish oil. I had quit taking both of those when I started with the calcium blend. If that fails, I'll begin taking the boron on its own.For sure, you just won't effectively digest the calcium if you don't take it with a meal, and stacking multiple pills into one meal will also lower the amount you absorb. Problems absorbing calcium are pretty well studied, the basic answer being: always take it with a meal. Whether that could coincidentally or causally hold true for the things that are bound in with the calcium in that particular pill, is not clear to me from any data I've seen.
If you get the separate boron pill, make a point of taking it at the beginning of each meal, at least to give it like a week's trial. If boron's relevance has to do with making carbs get digested correctly, then timing could be relevant.
Databased: a key point where our skin is different: Even if I follow all of the daylight/sleep/zinc rules, if I eat too much gluten over the course of a few days, I am guaranteed to get 4-5 cysts.Would still like to see what happens if you take a separate boron pill before each meal.
I just ran an unintentional, unpleasant experiment. I got a zit one day. Didn't pay attention, since I wasn't being very religious about my sleep or diet, and had just got finished seeing how massive amount of sugar/ice cream I could eat after I found that adding boron made me as close to "normal" as I had ever seen. Next day, another zit. Life is busy, just didn't pay attention. By the end of a week, I had a full-blown outbreak. It was devastating, not to have acne, but because I couldn't figure out why. I haven't really had acne I couldn't predict in advance from my actions since I formed this basic model about how acne works. I noticed I was starting to get excessive REM in my sleep again, too, but couldn't tell why. Finally, I sat down and walked through my entire day, bit by bit, looking for something I had changed. Lo and behold, when I dumped out my pill case, I suddenly realized I had forgotten to put Vitamin B in the last time I filled it. One week without Vitamin B, and I went from clear to a half-dozen, large, red, slow-healing lesions. I immediately grabbed the Vitamin B and took one. 2 sleep cycles later, all new acne ceased, and healing started going faster, the redness dying down, etc.
It was a reminder that if, as I claim, acne is a problem of digesting, then there's a bag of nutrients you have to get right to make up the difference. Multiple ingredients can be "necessary but not sufficient", like Vitamin B clearly is for me (I took Vitamin B for years without seeing an affect on acne until I started taking/doing other things). It was also a reminder that, IME, results and problems happen damn fast. Doesn't take more than one or two sleep cycles to stop acne if you have the right ingredients or to start it if you don't.
Wow that's very interesting because the EXACT same thing happened to me! I ran out of my B Complex pill and never really got around to getting more, a week went by and BAM now I'm broken out and reading on this site again 🙁 I've been back on it for a day now, so we will see what happens. It is such a delicate balance. The hardest part is doing what you want when you are clear. That's when it takes the most discipline.
Well.. ever since I reincorporated a B-50 Complex back into my regimen, I have seen great improvement. Although I did binge on a lot of wheat products (pizza!) the last weekend before my breakout. I am still quite convinced that dropping this out of my diet for a whole week was absolutely a factor in my last breakout.
Any improvement since you've retaken your B Complex Databased??
Ignore my last post. I will take boron before each meal, not once per day.
Is there any regular exercise in your day? I keep thinking about
the difference in how wheat affects you, and one thought is
whether some brisk exercise (taken 2-3 hours after eating) would
have any effect (in hopes that slowing down digestion may
get things better digested).
Any improvement since you've retaken your B Complex Databased??
Sure; that was the only thing that had changed since I was 100% clear,
so shortly after putting the Vitamin B back in all new acne stopped.
Databased,
I apologize if this has been asked before (you have so many posts and responses!), but what supplements are you taking and more importantly what time do you take them? I feel that I have nearly the exact same response to to zinc and other supplementation, AND good sleep as you do. Ice cream or any other heavy dairy will most certainly give me a bad breakout like you stated it does for you. However, it seems that every now and then I can get away with it as long as I'm supplementing properly and sleeping well. Problem is I don't really know what I'm doing right if that's the case 
Ignore my last post. I will take boron before each meal, not once per day.Is there any regular exercise in your day? I keep thinking about
the difference in how wheat affects you, and one thought is
whether some brisk exercise (taken 2-3 hours after eating) would
have any effect (in hopes that slowing down digestion may
get things better digested).
I exercise fairly extremely - full court basketball, power yoga, heavy weightlifting, etc. On average, I notice worse acne when I regularly exercise than when I do nothing. I am not much for moderation, but I could begin attempting some sort of 30 minutes of walking around the neighborhood routine. After reading the latest posts on Vitamin B, I started taking boron, vit B, and 25 mgs of zinc with each meal (4-5 times per day), in addition to the Calcium Blend multivitamin once/day. I have been doing that for about 5 days, and I currently have 0 active acne legions, although a small one surfaced last night which I was able to easily pop. This is major progress for me, and far and away the clearest I have ever been while drinking coffee on a daily basis and not spending 5+ hours outdoors. It is too cold to work outdoors so I am spending less than 10 minutes/day in the sun. I have a gathering at my house scheduled for tonight and I am shocked that I will have semi-normal skin going into it.
... I started taking boron, vit B, and 25 mgs of zinc with each meal (4-5 times per day), in addition to the Calcium Blend multivitamin once/day.
Interesting. :think:
Is that a B-50 with every meal or some other combination of B vitamins? I haven't had the cojones to take that much B or boron, and I've been uneasy about hitting 100mg of zinc. Keep us posted on how this goes.
I wonder if you've ever attributed your acne to excess iodine? I've always eaten very lean (its just the way I was raised I guess), but the other day I had a craving for chips and salsa. I also ran out of my normal multivitamin and used an old one which coincidentally contains quite a bit of iodine. AND I drink Muscle Milk a lot, which I've found to contain iodine as well. Now that I think about it I'm usually clear when I don't drink it. I am still recovering from the breakout. It was/is horrible. I've been in a foul mood for weeks now. I normally eat very low sodium, and hardly any dairy (unless I'm clear and feel invincible 
) I was wondering what all of you think about the iodine/acne link. You list ice cream as one of your culprits for an almost guaranteed breakout, which of course contains iodine. I don't know, maybe I'm looking/wishing too far into this but it does seem to make sense. Things that I've always attributed to acne are: tap water, dairy (milk/ice cream), chips, soda, Gatorade, breads, onions, mayo, and candy. One common link --> iodine. I'm going to keep it to a minimum. NOT eliminate, just lower.
BTW Databased your posts have been extremely helpful. They have made me look at acne in an entirely different way, and I firmly believe that you are on to something. Please continue to share your theories/success, and not bail out like most would once they find their "cure".
... I started taking boron, vit B, and 25 mgs of zinc with each meal (4-5 times per day), in addition to the Calcium Blend multivitamin once/day.Interesting. :think:
Is that a B-50 with every meal or some other combination of B vitamins? I haven't had the cojones to take that much B or boron, and I've been uneasy about hitting 100mg of zinc. Keep us posted on how this goes.
That was a B-50 with every meal, or at least 3 times/day.
Ugh, I hate to even say this because I feel like it's asking for a breakout, but my skin looks great despite a weekend of partying, eating junk once/day, and weird amounts of sleep (4 hours on thursday, 12 hours friday, 6 on saturday, 10 on sunday). The above vitamin regimen is clearly helping dramatically. If I can ever manage a week of sober / 8+ hours of sleep days in a row, I will begin toying around with bringing gluten back into my diet.
I wonder if you've ever attributed your acne to excess iodine?
Absolutely. Thought this for the last few months. Not too many people around here seem to buy it, but there are a few. Dan even looked into it, inconclusively. It seems to be mainly mentioned in passing by a few people who are convinced it's good or bad.
Most recently, I'm not too sure about iodine. It's definitely not the devil I thought it was, but it may still be a factor. I wouldn't be surprised if it's a factor for many.
And just for the record, I don't think boron is working any miracles for me. Not even if taken before every meal. I'll be keeping it up a while longer to be sure, but thus far it doesn't seem to be helping.
what supplements are you taking and more importantly what time do you take them?
I'm always tinkering (and will probably not take any at all when summer comes), but at this exact moment:
- calcium blend (mentioned previously, containing zinc and other stuff)
- boron
- Vitamin D
- Vitamin B complex
- alpha lipoic acid
- fish oil (not cod liver oil)
When I accidentally stopped taking Vitamin B, I started having excessive REM sleep (feels like nonstop dreaming). Resuming Vitamin B quickly stopped acne again, but the excessive REM continued. I then realized I had run out of fish oil in that time frame, so recently started trying to take it religiously to see what happens. I never counted fish oil as have much effect on my acne, but it's possible it does indirectly by affecting sleep. It clearly isn't instantly fixing my excessive REM, but I'll stay religious for a while to see what happens.
However, it seems that every now and then I can get away with it as long as I'm supplementing properly and sleeping well. Problem is I don't really know what I'm doing right if that's the case 🙁
I can relate.
This hypothesis offers the speculation that what's going wrong with digestion may be caused by bacteria in the small intestine. The small intestine should normally not have much bacteria (compared to the large intestine, where it's constant all-out war between competing huge colonies of bacteria). If small intestine bacteria is a major factor in carb malabsorption, then logically if you did something that accidentally led to a big die-off of that bacteria, then you would get at least a temporary "free pass" where you should be able to eat as much sugar/lactose/whatever as most people without much in the way of acne. At least, until the bacteria population rebounded (perhaps because you were enjoying all that lactose/fructose/whatever).
But exactly how bright sunlight can affect carb malabsorption is still a great mystery to me, if bacteria were actually the key culprit. The only news I've seen from those authors is last year's experiment to show that you can't effect tomorrow's breakfast carb malabsorption one way or the other by tinkering with evening light exposure the day before that breakfast.
I am doing all of the above with the exception of ALA (I think it's supposed to help with sugar digestion?). Anyway, I am back on track now that I've got my vitamin B complex back in my diet. It's amazing how something so little has such a great impact on my skin and overall health. One thing I have noticed though is that excess Iodine makes me breakout. I'm starting to find a lot of it in some of the "triggers" I have that I learned from trial and error. I realized this when I had a bad breakout right after using a new multivitamin. It ended up having a ton of iodine in it as opposed to the zero in my usual one a day. Chips and salsa, salty peanuts, salt vinegar chips, etc... all break me out, and I usually don't eat them. Now I think, or at least hope, I know why.
I wonder if you've ever attributed your acne to excess iodine?
The exact same thing happened to me with the multivitamin. Unlike my old vitamin, which I've been taking for a couple years, this one had 100% DV of iodine. It's always hard to pinpoint the cause of a breakout, but I had a strong suspicion this was the culprit, since I was clear before taking the new vitamin, clear after the breakout when I resumed taking my old vitamin, and had not changed (that I knew of...) anything else diet or sleep -wise.
So yeah, I avoid iodine. But I don't go nuts about it, seeing that you need a certain amount to remain healthy.
@Databased: if it's not too much inconvenience, could you post the amount of each supplement you take and the time when you take it? Seems like you found the winning combo.
(I would be very surprised, though, if you figure out what causes the excessive REM. That's a sure sign for me that my sleep was screwed up. It's the mornings when I wake up not remembering my dreams that I seem to feel the healthiest and have the clearest skin.)
More data: I've been clear for a while, then drank a glass of fresh squeezed juice because it looked really, really, good. Acne the next day.
I wonder if you've ever attributed your acne to excess iodine?
I have toyed around with cutting iodine out of my diet and never noticed anything. In fact, the clearest I have been lately has been when I have taken the Calcium Blend that Databased recommended, which has iodine in it. I have been eating a Houston's ribeye steak on a nightly basis for 2 months, and I believe it is very salty. This seems to have helped my skin as well.
I am doing all of the above with the exception of ALA (I think it's supposed to help with sugar digestion?).
Unfortunately, the research on ALA and acne is all in Russian that I can't read. This source characterizes it as
activates a factor in the body known as AP-1, which produces enzymes that digest damaged collagen and helps erase scars,including acne scars
My reason for viewing ALA as relevant to acne is simply its potential to help mop up superoxide anions. There is speculation that it actually also reduces the superoxide anion spew of immune system cells, which under this hypothesis is a secondary stage of the acne process (after local skin cells have emitted so much superoxide anion to kill bacteria that they start killing other human cells, immune system cells will come running to kill anything in sight, and the inflammatory cascade is off and running).
So a modest amount of ALA seems like a plausible component of any anti-acne supplement.
I would be very surprised, though, if you figure out what causes the excessive REM.
Yeah, unlike acne, can't produce it on demand so it's hard to experiment on. It has started decreasing, but it's hard to tell if that's because a) a week of aggressively taking fish oil has elapsed or b) I've started going to bed earlier relative to sunrise or c) it's just going away "on its own" independent of anything I've done to affect it. I lean towards a or b simply because it sure didn't seem to be going away until I started trying to do something about it.
I wonder if you've ever attributed your acne to excess iodine?The exact same thing happened to me with the multivitamin. Unlike my old vitamin, which I've been taking for a couple years, this one had 100% DV of iodine. It's always hard to pinpoint the cause of a breakout, but I had a strong suspicion this was the culprit, since I was clear before taking the new vitamin, clear after the breakout when I resumed taking my old vitamin, and had not changed (that I knew of...) anything else diet or sleep -wise.
So yeah, I avoid iodine. But I don't go nuts about it, seeing that you need a certain amount to remain healthy.
@Databased: if it's not too much inconvenience, could you post the amount of each supplement you take and the time when you take it? Seems like you found the winning combo.
(I would be very surprised, though, if you figure out what causes the excessive REM. That's a sure sign for me that my sleep was screwed up. It's the mornings when I wake up not remembering my dreams that I seem to feel the healthiest and have the clearest skin.)
More data: I've been clear for a while, then drank a glass of fresh squeezed juice because it looked really, really, good. Acne the next day.
I have not been taking the Calcium Blend supplement for a few days because I have had the strongest breakout since around the time of September. I then took notice that it contains 150mcg of Iodine from Kelp... that's the RDA guideline met right there. I cant recall any time when eating Seafood that my skin has looked good.
You read all the horror stories people have with Vitamin B12 and B6 and suddenly taking the B Complex is a little off-putting as well... many saying it is only a few Ingredients that help the skin in it.
As I've understood you, you believe that not digesting food properly can lead to acne. If we agree here, I think you should broaden your spectrum, because there is many factors that lead to a good breakdown of food.
f.ex do not drink while having a meal:
http://chestofbooks.com/health/natural-cur...With-Meals.html
http://chestofbooks.com/health/natural-cur...After-Work.html
etcetc++
As I've understood you, you believe that not digesting food properly can lead to acne. If we agree here, I think you should broaden your spectrum, because there is many factors that lead to a good breakdown of food.
However, when the cause of not digesting food properly is an overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine (which should contain hardly any), then one has to think about whether a particular technique aids digestion, or just aids the bacteria in digesting more of the nutrients you yourself need.
f.ex do not drink while having a meal:
AFAICT, most medical experts discount this advice; water shoots through the system so much faster than solid food it's hard to see how it can interfere.
From this "reference":
Animals and so-called primitive peoples do not drink with their meals and there is every reason to consider this instinctive practice to be best.
In addition to not being expert on digestion, I would suggest this author has also never owned (or seen?) a dog. Every dog I've ever owned or watched tanks up on water immediately after eating if fresh water is available.
"Rule-3-Never-Eat-During-Or-Immediately-Before-Or-After-Work.html"
This is more complex and, of course, this "reference" cites no actual studies of digestion. The latest information I can find is that, contrary to common belief, exercise slows motility. Whether or not that's a plus for what's going on in the case of acne is anybody's guess, but it is at least a knob that can be turned to see what happens.
I have not been taking the Calcium Blend supplement for a few days because I have had the strongest breakout since around the time of September. I then took notice that it contains 150mcg of Iodine from Kelp... that's the RDA guideline met right there. I cant recall any time when eating Seafood that my skin has looked good.
iodine is interesting, since it apparently is irrelevant for some and not others. Question: what's your Vitamin D intake been during the last three months?
The RDA for iodine is intended to be enough to keep you from getting brain damage and goiters. 225mcg/day (if you actually took 3 of those pills per day) is not a lot of iodine, unless you're getting a lot somewhere else in your diet as well (ton o' iodized salt?). Note that traditional Japanese/Korean diets (generally associated with lower rates of cancer, among other things) can contain relatively massive amounts of iodine.
If I found that my acne was immediately worsened by adding 225mcg/day of iodine, I would be concerned that I had other underlying health problems. Of course, there are many other things in that pill, and it's hard to tie an outbreak to any one factor unless you can successfully repeat the experience a number of times without fail.
You read all the horror stories people have with Vitamin B12 and B6 and suddenly taking the B Complex is a little off-putting as well... many saying it is only a few Ingredients that help the skin in it.
Anyone who as the slightest fear about any supplement should, of course, not take that supplement. However, I would like to read "all the horror stories" to see what dosages they were using, if you have links!