2 hours ago, snarkygirl said:some vitamins can exacerbate acne. And some people react bvadly to fish oils. Maybe try flax or borage oil instead.
Yeah... I haven't been taking fish oil for about four months now. I haven't really gotten pustules on the level that I used to (I used to get some that were deep, painful clusters of maybe 3-4 heads, and would be so intense that they inflamed my lymph nodes). Now I get only single-head ones, and they are not nearly as deep. However, I still get the full spectrum of acne, and my skin is mega-shiny. The only way to know what works and what doesn't is to change one factor at a time... right now I'm trying Vitamin A, so I'll see how that goes.
Trucking along. Been super-oily by the end of the day. I've added moisturizer back into my regimen because I've realized, even though I get oily with or without moisturizer, I'm definitely not doing my skin any favors by depriving it of moisture on a regular basis.
Gave up Vitamin D for good. That stuff just doesn't agree with my skin. I wanted it to work, but every time I incorporate it, my existing red marks swell up, I break out around the mouth, and I get red flaky patches by my temples and on my upper eyelids.
On 6/29/2016 at 0:24 PM, wombat666 said:Yeah... I haven't been taking fish oil for about four months now. I haven't really gotten pustules on the level that I used to (I used to get some that were deep, painful clusters of maybe 3-4 heads, and would be so intense that they inflamed my lymph nodes). Now I get only single-head ones, and they are not nearly as deep. However, I still get the full spectrum of acne, and my skin is mega-shiny. The only way to know what works and what doesn't is to change one factor at a time... right now I'm trying Vitamin A, so I'll see how that goes.
for oilyness vitamin A and B5 are used a lot.
5 hours ago, snarkygirl said:On 6/29/2016 at 0:24 PM, wombat666 said:Yeah... I haven't been taking fish oil for about four months now. I haven't really gotten pustules on the level that I used to (I used to get some that were deep, painful clusters of maybe 3-4 heads, and would be so intense that they inflamed my lymph nodes). Now I get only single-head ones, and they are not nearly as deep. However, I still get the full spectrum of acne, and my skin is mega-shiny. The only way to know what works and what doesn't is to change one factor at a time... right now I'm trying Vitamin A, so I'll see how that goes.for oilyness vitamin A and B5 are used a lot.
yeah.. that's why I'm trying the A. I heard about B5, but I tried it a while ago to no avail.. 
1 hour ago, snarkygirl said:Hope it works.
Me too. Not sure though, I think I'm actually oilier than when I started. I've been using A on and off for about three weeks now and things have only changed for the worse.
I also tried green tea recently (heard it was good for acne, oil and overall health), which I used to drink a lot of, but now it gives me migraines every time I ingest it. I was going to start drinking it instead of coffee, but looks like I'm sticking with coffee for now!
So I am going to write off Vitamin A as a failed experiment. I only used it on and off for about three weeks, but through those three weeks, I've been feeling sluggish, depressed, had low libido, and had insanely oily skin. My breakouts have been more or less the same. I haven't broken out more (except for when I added Vitamin D to the mix), but from what I heard, Vitamin A was supposed to dry out oily skin, not exacerbate it.
My other reason for stopping A is, it doesn't seem to be a good idea to take it long-term. Even if I do have success from taking higher-than-recommended doses of it, how long will I be able to keep that up before my liver explodes?
So far, supplements I've tried that make my condition worse are:
- Fish oil (I took it for about half a year and it gave me DEEP cysts. More like carbuncles really. Big, inflamed things with 2-3 white heads that would burst and leave bloody craters behind.
- Vitamin D. I tried it on and off, and every time it made my existing acne / red marks swell up, and gave me rashes / scaly patches on my temples and eyelids. Also made me break out hard around the mouth.
- Probiotics. These gave me the worst breakout of my life back in 2013. I had a field of cysts all around my mouth. It hurt to move my mouth in the slightest.
- Multivitamins. These gave me cysts around my mouth and jawline. Probably not a good idea taking these if you're acne-prone, since there are so many vitamins / minerals in there it's hard to tell what might be aggravating acne and what might be helping it.
- Vitamin A...? Didn't improve or make my acne worse, but really did a number on my already oily skin and overall well-being.
The search continues!
On 7/6/2016 at 11:38 AM, wombat666 said:Me too. Not sure though, I think I'm actually oilier than when I started. I've been using A on and off for about three weeks now and things have only changed for the worse.
I also tried green tea recently (heard it was good for acne, oil and overall health), which I used to drink a lot of, but now it gives me migraines every time I ingest it. I was going to start drinking it instead of coffee, but looks like I'm sticking with coffee for now!
lol I know the coffee/ tea dilemma. Green tea gas a histamine response in some people. I'm considering topical green tea as its supposed to be better on the skin.
Hi guys, i have acne one the same spot as you do. I also have bacne caused by dairy.
Ive never taken oral antibiotics.
I tried diets but i just lost weight and muscle. Right now i just avoid dairy.
I take multivitamins, zinc picolinate, magnesium, probiotics with garlic powder and grape seed extract, grape seed extract itself, Vitamin B complex. All of these unregularly and when i remember to take something.
Right now im using Duac with a cheap cleanser containing sacylic acid and zinc, Apple cider vinegar and a hydratation cream with magnolia extract. This regimen has given me great results clearing acne. I still get breakouts offcourse, because Im not adressing the underlyin issue, but its far less inflamed and noticable.
Ive got a lot of redness left from big cysts on my jawline.
Its not a cure but its under control for now.
On 7/10/2016 at 4:40 PM, Coce99 said:Hi guys, i have acne one the same spot as you do. I also have bacne caused by dairy.
Ive never taken oral antibiotics.
I tried diets but i just lost weight and muscle. Right now i just avoid dairy.
I take multivitamins, zinc picolinate, magnesium, probiotics with garlic powder and grape seed extract, grape seed extract itself, Vitamin B complex. All of these unregularly and when i remember to take something.Right now im using Duac with a cheap cleanser containing sacylic acid and zinc, Apple cider vinegar and a hydratation cream with magnolia extract. This regimen has given me great results clearing acne. I still get breakouts offcourse, because Im not adressing the underlyin issue, but its far less inflamed and noticable.
Ive got a lot of redness left from big cysts on my jawline.Its not a cure but its under control for now.
I'm actually trying out the zinc picolinate now. So far it seems to have given me some painful ones near my mouth and on my jawline, but I can't really tell if those would have come up anyway. Gonna take it for a couple of weeks to see.
So I've been taking zinc picolinate, 100mg a day for 2-3 weeks now. I've skipped a couple days here and there because the 100mg dosage is pretty high. I've also been experimenting with using the Regimen twice a day instead of once, and have switched to using La Roche Posay SA cleanser instead of regular Dove soap. The Regimen 2x a day thing was just too much to handle, so I lowered it back down to nightly. I've also been moisturizing on a regular basis. I used Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Lotion on and off, and while it provided excellent moisture and kept facial redness to a minimum, it was really greasy and seemed like it was clogging my pores. I ended up going back to my CeraVe Moisturizer that I used all throughout last year. It makes my face redder than I'd like, but eh...
Overall, my skin is still oily as hell. I have to continuously go through blotting papers (5-6 on a regular workday). Zinc also seems to be breaking me out a bit, but not excessively. I have a 5-6 painful cysts on my jawline, and one near my mouth. If it wasn't helping me at all, I would stop - but I've noticed that since taking it, my libido has great. In the past months, I've been really sluggish and was having serious ED. I could only perform adequately maybe once a week. Now it's like I'm back in my teens. Honestly, even if zinc does exacerbate acne, I'd keep taking it as long as the libido-boosting effects stay. Also, I used to have some serious BO if I sweated a lot. Now, strangely enough, I don't smell at all. My shower products haven't changed, nothing's really changed except the zinc.
On a different note, I am definitely going to need to start staking copper soon, since high-dose zinc depletes copper and can have some serious consequences.
Small update. Zinc has been okay. The aforementioned benefits have not abated. Unfortunately, I've been noticing that I get headaches and serious brain fog / spaced out / detached feeling. I've been getting more hard, painful pustules on random parts of my face, and big cysts are still brewing on my jawline.
I am going to cut out zinc for about a week and see if things normalize a little. That way I'll see if there's a definite correlation.
Been trucking along. I haven't been taking crazy amounts of zinc, but haven't cut it out completely either. My libido has dropped off, but my acne is now nowhere near as extreme as it was just a week or two ago. I have some small comedonal stuff, and maybe one or two bigger painful ones near my ears. Lately I've gone back to washing my face only once a day (in the evening), not moisturizing in the mornings, and only using BP every other day (or every 2 days). Anyway, my skin has liked it. Pimples that stayed swollen and inflamed have gone down dramatically, and I've barely seemed to have any breakouts at all. My face has returned to a normal color (as opposed to lobster red) which I also really like.
Well, I'm back on doxy. I've tried weaning off of zinc, with a tablet here and there. Haven't really taken any for the past week, and my acne is really out of control right now. I have about 10 big, painful pustules on my face. They are almost more like boils than real acne. I asked my doc to re-prescribe doxy because I feel like the BP is really useless against the big pustules.
Well, half a year later, I'm worse off than when I started this thread - but at least I've discovered several things that don't work for my acne, which is nice. Seems like most supplements that are traditionally good for acne give me problems. Vitamin C, Vitamin D3, Vitamin A, Zinc - each one made my skin worse in its own special way.
On 12/14/2016 at 6:03 AM, foxtrotdarlin said:How are you doing at the moment?
I'm doing okay. Still on doxy, which I think has been keeping my large acne from getting too large.
I did some major bloodwork recently (for a variety of issues, mainly low energy, constant fatigue, irritability, sleep problems, libido issues) and have gotten back some interesting results: 1) my vitamin D levels are low and 2) my testosterone is that of an 85-100 year old man.
I'm currently supplementing vitamin D, fish oil, maca root and a little zinc (already learned my lesson regarding excessive zinc supplementation), as well as magnesium. It hasn't had a profound effect on my acne. I break out a little more but thanks to the doxy, it's relatively in check. I'll need to check back in a couple months to re-evaluate where I stand as far as acne, vit. D levels and T levels. Generally, as T increases, so does acne - we'll see.
On January 3, 2017 at 2:26 PM, Coce99 said:How is your digestion? Are you considering isotretonin in future?
My digestion is good. I used to deal with chronic IBS-like symptoms, but haven't had those recur for about a year now.
I don't think I'll go on isotretinoin again unless I REALLY had to.
So I'm going to resurrect this thread because two years later, I'm still dealing with this. I stopped doxy at some point in late 2017 / early 2018, because it was giving me symptoms like excess water retention, weight gain, pain in my feet and IBS. I subsequently went on a course of narrow-spectrum antibiotics to kill off any bad bacteria that might have colonized my gut post-doxycycline. I went for about a year not really taking care of my face, washing once in the mornings, etc. I always consistently had at least 1-2 cysts on my face. Some weeks it was significantly more, other weeks it would calm down. In addition, I'd always have oily skin and a bunch of closed comedones.
2 weeks ago my face exploded like it hadn't for a while, and I ended up with 10-15 active cysts / pustules, in addition to a number of smaller inflamed whiteheads. I decided to hit up my primary care physician and convinced him to give me a prescription for clindamycin/tretinoin, which was a combo that had worked well for me back in 2010. I'm currently only using the clindamycin phosphate, 2x a day. Haven't started the tretinoin yet because I want my skin to get used to the clindamycin first, and also have it kill off as much as possible before I undergo the purging effects of the tretinoin. I figure, the less there is to purge, the better.
I've been been using Clindamycin for about 5 days now. At this point I don't have my hopes too high, and I know it may take a while to see results. But granted how long I've been dealing with this, it's a small price to pay. I'm hoping not only to take care of my pustular acne, but to get my oily skin / clogged pores under control. Here's to gradual improvement!
You very possibly have fungal outbreaks, not acne.
If you have a white tongue plus the skin symptoms, you probably have candida. If you have dandruff and the skin symptoms, you probably have malassezia. Both of these are fungi, usually caused by taking antibiotics. Antibiotics can appear to control fungal outbreaks for a short time, because some antibiotics control inflammation.
If you have a white (or yellow) coating on your tongue and/or if you have dandruff, get back to me, and I can provide information about how to control your problem.
In the meantime, STOP using moisturisers on your skin. Moisturisers feed malasezzia (it lives on organic oils) and all fungus loves moist environments.
54 minutes ago, Aussie Scientist said:You very possibly have fungal outbreaks, not acne.
If you have a white tongue plus the skin symptoms, you probably have candida. If you have dandruff and the skin symptoms, you probably have malassezia. Both of these are fungi, usually caused by taking antibiotics. Antibiotics can appear to control fungal outbreaks for a short time, because some antibiotics control inflammation.
If you have a white (or yellow) coating on your tongue and/or if you have dandruff, get back to me, and I can provide information about how to control your problem.
In the meantime, STOP using moisturisers on your skin. Moisturisers feed malasezzia (it lives on organic oils) and all fungus loves moist environments.
Unfortunately, the breakouts were happening even before my round(s) of antibiotics. They are clearly hormonal cysts, since they are exacerbated by periods of stress and/or increased sexual activity, and tend to dissipate with better sleep, stress management, etc (without ever fully going away).
In theory, I could control the outbreaks via day-and-night BP application, which has worked in the past. However, I am unfortunately unable to moisturize while on BP, since any post-BP moisturizers end up burning my skin. In addition, I've never been a fan of the clothes/towels/pillowcase bleaching side effects of BP.
One week of using clindamycin phosphate so far, 2x a day (morning and night), and I like what I'm seeing.
I've only had a few new pimples come up since last week. Some have gotten moderately inflamed, but not nearly to the level that I'm used to.
Existing pimples have shrunk / dried up significantly. A good number of the pimples that were cysts last week are now just flat areas with hyperpigmentation.
I haven't been moisturizing too much (patches of moisturizer in the morning, none in the evening) and my skin has stayed pleasantly dry. I also don't have as much shine near the end of the day as I used to.
I'm probably going to use clindamycin for another week or so before adding in the Retin-A. The latter is what I'm really excited about, since I see that as being a potential long-term fix for my acne problem. It worked really well the previous time I used it, but I got complacent and didn't stick it out long enough to see its real potential. I used to think a second round of Accutane would be my backup plan, but after considering the lasting damage a second course could potentially cause, I decided against it.
Fingers crossed!