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Hi all! 34 year old female with hormonal acne.
I started getting cystic acne (only on lower half of face) since about 20 years old. When I turned 31 I started spiro and retin-a. My skin quickly cleared up for the first time since I started having acne. After about 6 months, I stopped the spiro, and only continued with the retin-a. For the proceeding 11 months, my skin was still perfectly clear. August last year I did the Aztec clay mask for the first time in a few years before a concert and a couple days later I broke out worse than I ever have and since then have been battling the cystic hormonal acne since then.
Fast forward to a week ago when I started taking standardized saw palmetto. I started with 120mg only once daily... since then I have experienced high anxiety (two panic attacks) and lack of sleep.
Im a little nervous about attempting to take the pills twice a day since it might make the anxiety worse...
is this anxiety just a side effect phase that others have experienced and passed, or could this be just how my body responds to this and will never get better?
Hi! Late reply, but oh well.
I have taken saw palmetto for 2+ years. It works reasonably well for hormonal acne, but every time I would stop, my acne would flare back up. I stopped saw palmetto cold turkey 3 weeks ago and swapped it out for cistus incanus tea (more on that later..) but here is what happened when I stopped saw palmetto:
1. My anxiety has dropped over the course of 3 weeks to an astounding degree. I had no idea I was living with this for two whole years of my life. So many things make sense now, in retrospect. It's been a rough two years and I thought it was due to all my mega-life-changes, but actually I was overly anxious...constantly. I genuinely believe it was the saw palmetto now.
2. My acne has not come back this time, unlike all the other times. I attribute this to the cistus incanus tea I started drinking 3 times daily. Cistus incanus is a mediterranean herb that acts as an antimicrobial in the gut (and any part of the body with a biofilm or mucous lining). It is used in the treatment of lyme disease because it can kill the bacterial spirochetes. For acne, I learned that it can be caused by a certain bacterial overload somewhere in the gut (not the kind of bacterial overload that makes you sick...but the kind that can cause acne or rosacea). Anyway cistus tea is said to get rid of this bacterial imbalance over time (as is oil of oregano!). It's worth a try and doesn't have nasty side effects