Hi,

I just want to share my experience with treating my acne in case any of you find it helpful. (Sorry to any men reading - I'm gonna talk about periods/cycles. There are probably traditional chinese medicine (TCM) methods geared towards men too though)

I suffered acne as a teenager (I'm 28 now) but when I went on BCPs at 17 my skin completely cleared and I never thought about it again until I stopped taking the pill in July of 2009. The first few months after the pill were fine, but around March 2010 I started breaking out horribly with cysts, only on my chin, always before my period, and sometimes other times too. The cysts would last 2 weeks so it felt pretty constant. The other thing was that my period was completely irregular, my cycle would last anywhere from 25 to 45 days.

In May 2010 I started seeing a naturopath who had me cut out dairy and that worked quite well. I didn't eat dairy for all of summer 2010 and my skin was pretty clear except for when I caved and ate ice cream and then I'd break out. It wasn't perfect but definitely better. The only problem was that I love to eat, and not eating dairy was making me almost as miserable as my acne had been making me (ok that's an exaggeration but you know what I mean). In the fall I finally gave up and went back to eating dairy and the breakouts came back with a vengeance.

So, I started seeing a TCM practitioner in early September. Since then I've had one acupuncture session a month and I take herbal pills (my formulation changes every few weeks). The pills are more expensive than the herbs that you boil into a tea (the more potent type), but I have a friend doing the boiling method and she says it is so disgusting and makes her entire house smell so bad that she never ends up taking them.

Anyway, I started noticing changes immediately. My cycle changed to 28 days on the button right away, and over the past 3 months my breakouts were becoming less severe. This past cycle I got a few small pimples right before my period, but no cysts, and nothing any other time in my cycle. The other huge difference is that when I do get pimpes they are smaller and heal very quickly. Start to finish will be 3 days rather than 2 weeks like my cysts used to be. Occasionally I develop cysts but they don't seem to come to the surface anymore, I can just feel them for a few days and then they go away.

Basically I'm really happy with the results so far. Every month my skin is getting better and better. Also I just feel like my body is working the way it's supposed to now, and I love that the whole thing is all natural (the pills contain things like tree bark and mushrooms). My skin is also much less oily.

The best part of this is that I can eat what I want. I eat quite well anyway (lots of fruits and veggies, mostly whole foods), but it is nice to not feel restricted like I did last summer.

The only other change I made in the last few weeks is having a greens/fruit smoothie every day (I blend up kale, spinach, berries, apples and pears). I have no idea if this is helping my skin since I'm doing them and the TCM at the same time. I am doing the smoothies more just for general health.

Ok, sorry this was so long - let me know if you have any questions