I'm a 35 yr old female. My acne is mainly under my chin on both sides of my face that worsens before my period, some of it being cystic. I tried birth control pills three times in my 20's, Ortho & Estrostep. Both pills gave me severe cystic acne on my face and all over my body. At one point, I remained on Ortho for 7 months..dr. told me to stick it out..cystic acne became so severe, I am still scarred to this day. After going off of the pill it took 2-3 months to clear up. Interesting fact..pill helped ease my periods but bloated me and gave me cystic acne. The doctors had no explanation-actually baffled, so after the 3rd try with the pill and seeing the same results, I decided to forget the pill all together. Still left with the question...why doesn't the pill work for me when it helped so many of my friends over the years??

In the past ten years, I have tried a lot for my acne, smooth beam laser (which helped), low glycemic diet, fraxel (which just took away a decent amount of scarring, but didn't stop breakouts). I started obaji about 5 years ago and my skin was pretty decent for a while. I like Obaji a lot. About 2-3 yrs ago my acne moved down to my chin area and started to flare up again, getting a bit cystic before my period. Last year I started Estrosense and I had amazing results after 3 weeks, less PMS, no new breakouts...really it was a miracle. For 6 months it stayed that way. It was amazing. I thought I had found my cure.... Then just like that, the Estrosense seemed to stop working and the acne came back. A friend of mine recommend that I supplement with progesterone cream. I tried it for only two days and my stomach bloated to the point that I looked pregnant. Another friend of mine who was hooked on Estrosense had the same thing happen to her too...stopped working, just like that.. We were both questioning...Did they change the formula?? Was there something else we could do?? It seemed to still help a bit for the PMS, but no longer the acne.

So it got me researching...and now I'm even more confused. The pill introduces estrogen to the body, which lowers testosterone, which clears acne. AND Estrosense lowers estrogen, which should then raise testosterone, which should (in theory) cause acne..but it doesn't...instead it helped me for a while...AND then there is progesterone in the pill, which some people have a reaction to...but supplementing with progesterone is supposed to help PMS. After my reaction to the cream, I question if it was the progesterone in the pill that caused my cysts all those years ago??

I'm reaching out there to see if any one else has had the same issues with the pill and has tried DIM or Estrosense with success, only to have it stop working??