I've been on birth control for 9 months and even though my acne has somewhat calmed down it's still there every month. I get a few deep cyst like acne every month which leave bad PIH/scars, so I don't feel like there's enough effect. I tried spiro but it gave me weird side effects. Now considering saw palmetto. Can you take it with bc? Also, is there any other supplement to consider in conjunction with birth control?

All hormonal birth control methods prevent pregnancy through progestin (synthetic version of progesterone). Dead stop. You can prevent pregnancy with progestin-only, many pills and implants work this way. Some BCs have estrogen just because a lot of women need it to avoid side effects from an imbalance...too much progesterone has been documented to cause acne, bloating, nausea, cramps, headaches....basically all your PMS symptoms. (VERY technically speaking, estrogen has a minor anti-pregnancy effect by reducing LH and FSH by a small amount, so if you are on a high estrogen/low progesterone pill then you may not want to take anything that REDUCES your estrogen.) Testosterone affects libido but does not prevent or induce pregnancy.

So to answer your question, you can (within reason) basically reduce your testosterone all you want and increase your estrogen all you want without changing the efficacy of your birth control. Saw palmetto and other natural anti-androgens are perfectly safe in that regard. I would NOT take anything that alters your progesterone level (Vitex, Chasteberry, progesterone cream, etc.) If you are on a combined progesterone/estrogen pill, then I also would avoid anything that lowers estrogen.

Hey, great answer from green gables, if you are on a combined pill I would be a bit cautious just in case, since the combined pill uses a combination of hormones to control ovulation and anything that impacts that balance may reduce its effectiveness. Have you looked in to the pill you are on? There may be another that could help further, or changing up your skincare as you approach that time of the month to try and prevent breakouts. I have found aha's and salicylic acid to be helpful in combination with the pill, they help with the PIH as well. Good luck, you sound like you are on the right path xx

 

I've been on birth control for 9 months and even though my acne has somewhat calmed down it's still there every month. I get a few deep cyst like acne every month which leave bad PIH/scars, so I don't feel like there's enough effect. I tried spiro but it gave me weird side effects. Now considering saw palmetto. Can you take it with bc? Also, is there any other supplement to consider in conjunction with birth control?

All hormonal birth control methods prevent pregnancy through progestin (synthetic version of progesterone). Dead stop. You can prevent pregnancy with progestin-only, many pills and implants work this way. Some BCs have estrogen just because a lot of women need it to avoid side effects from an imbalance...too much progesterone has been documented to cause acne, bloating, nausea, cramps, headaches....basically all your PMS symptoms. (VERY technically speaking, estrogen has a minor anti-pregnancy effect by reducing LH and FSH by a small amount, so if you are on a high estrogen/low progesterone pill then you may not want to take anything that REDUCES your estrogen.) Testosterone affects libido but does not prevent or induce pregnancy.

So to answer your question, you can (within reason) basically reduce your testosterone all you want and increase your estrogen all you want without changing the efficacy of your birth control. Saw palmetto and other natural anti-androgens are perfectly safe in that regard. I would NOT take anything that alters your progesterone level (Vitex, Chasteberry, progesterone cream, etc.) If you are on a combined progesterone/estrogen pill, then I also would avoid anything that lowers estrogen.

Thank you so much for that answer! I am on Yaz which is a combination pill, so I guess I really shouldn't consider DIM. Which doesn't bother me so much since I never actually understood how it really works for acne when it lowers estrogens and increases testosterone. It doesn't make a lot of sense and there hasn't been enough studies on it.

Hey, great answer from green gables, if you are on a combined pill I would be a bit cautious just in case, since the combined pill uses a combination of hormones to control ovulation and anything that impacts that balance may reduce its effectiveness. Have you looked in to the pill you are on? There may be another that could help further, or changing up your skincare as you approach that time of the month to try and prevent breakouts. I have found aha's and salicylic acid to be helpful in combination with the pill, they help with the PIH as well. Good luck, you sound like you are on the right path xx

I tried salicylic acid and other acids but I have sensitive skin so I gave them up for a while because I think they were causing a lot of redness and I was getting new broken capillaries to which I am prone genetically. Now I'm just gonna do clay masks and physical exfoliator (surprisingly my skin takes that much better than chemical ones). Also, thing is, I don't just break out before my period. I get big ones all across the month, It's like a week apart for each breakout or so. Maybe two weeks sometimes. But it's pretty scattered. On the better months though I will only break out during second week. On any given month, the second week seems to be the worst as well.

Around the end of the second week in our cycle is when we ovulate which causes a change in hormone levels, I think this is when estrogen drops so that might be what causes the worse breakout around that time, maybe look in to ovulation and breakouts and see if anything useful comes up. I used to break out around that time as well, going on dianette really helped me, I'm now on cilest ( in the uk, I think it is called something different in the states)....sometimes it sucks being a girl!xx

Going on diane 35 solved 99% of my acne when i was a teen... it was my miracle cure. And I don't remember having side effects from it back then, but now in my 20's when I tried Yasmin and Diane they both gave me really weird side effects, like random parts of my body just went numb for hours and I would also get panic attacks. I have no idea why it wasn't a problem in the past but is now. Spiro did the same thing too...

This month was bad again... had like 5 big breakouts as opposed to 2 last month. I'm going to try and cut back on sugar again, though I don't know if that's what's causing it, cause I've had months in the past half a year where I had very little problems with acne and I was drinking sodas every day. I usually mostly breakout around the end of week 1 and all the way into week 2. Sometimes beginning of cycle, sometimes before period, but those vary. I'm using an azelaic acid cream right now which I think kinda helps, but it probably works with small bumps better than the cyst like bumps.

I feel like my skin right now needs that final kick to get better. Only I'm not really sure what it is at all. I don't even have any symptoms of high testosterone anymore. Before I knew for a fact that was it, due to my sex drive and oily skin and how I was just super aggressive, but now it's just acne. And my obgyn said it's pointless to take hormone tests on the pill because it will show very low levels. I'm not sure where to go from here really.

Dr. Redmond has published papers saying that adult women with acne most likely have a sensitivity to their own (often normal levels of) testosterone. This is why hormone testing can often be inconclusive. Unfortunately we don't have a way to decrease sensitivity directly, so the best we can do is modulate the hormone levels until we find a setpoint where the body stops producing acne...even if that setpoint means your testosterone is lower than average.

LIfelong confusion---have you tried adding in things that regulate your blood sugar? Insulin is a "master" hormone that affects the stability of the "minor" hormones (testosterone, estrogen, progesterone). You may be getting hyperglycemic spikes whenever you eat. You can try taking a pill of over-the-counter berberine with each meal and seeing how you feel. I would particularly recommend in your case because of your strange episodes of numbness...this can be related to pre-diabetic neuropathy...when your blood sugar is haywire your nerves can freak out or even atrophy. By the time we're adults and have these problems, it may not be something we can really control with just diet and exercise anymore. The body develops a blood sugar setpoint that can be impossible to reverse without the help of supplements or medications.

I'd say even though we all heard herbs work mildly, be careful with them! I did take several herb supplement, like vitex and saw palmetto, somehow none of them worked, vitex actually made my acne a lot worse. and I did found these herbal "hormone regulator" make a difference on my cycle, and not necessary good ones. (Of course I did all the researches, reading about what herb will make what impact on hormone etc.) And those negative effects may take a while to get revised. Unless I talked to a herbalist, or have a doctor check my hormone and figure out how to balance it, from now I will definitely stay away from herbs that aim to balance hormones.

Dr. Redmond has published papers saying that adult women with acne most likely have a sensitivity to their own (often normal levels of) testosterone. This is why hormone testing can often be inconclusive. Unfortunately we don't have a way to decrease sensitivity directly, so the best we can do is modulate the hormone levels until we find a setpoint where the body stops producing acne...even if that setpoint means your testosterone is lower than average.

LIfelong confusion---have you tried adding in things that regulate your blood sugar? Insulin is a "master" hormone that affects the stability of the "minor" hormones (testosterone, estrogen, progesterone). You may be getting hyperglycemic spikes whenever you eat. You can try taking a pill of over-the-counter berberine with each meal and seeing how you feel. I would particularly recommend in your case because of your strange episodes of numbness...this can be related to pre-diabetic neuropathy...when your blood sugar is haywire your nerves can freak out or even atrophy. By the time we're adults and have these problems, it may not be something we can really control with just diet and exercise anymore. The body develops a blood sugar setpoint that can be impossible to reverse without the help of supplements or medications.

I'm not really familiar with this stuff... the numbness never happened on its own, only on drospirenone. It seems more of a side effect of the medication (which is included in list of possible side effects even if rare) rather than something that naturally happens to me.

My doctor says not to mix saw palmetto with birth control if you're going to use it as contraception and I've read online onlin it's not advisable because it can decrease the 99% effectiveness. I don't know about the effect on acne but you should definitely use a condom if you engage in any activities while taking saw palmetto