Please help me with my predicament! This is a semi-lengthy post, but If anyone would read it and could give their honest opinion, especially someone who knows a little bit about digestive/ acne issues...it would mean a hell of a lot to me. I seemingly have autoimmune reactions to a wide variety of foods. What's bizarre is these foods are specific things considered bad for acne, like dairy in any form, any type of refined sugar, heavy gluten (a little seems okay) etc. etc. It also includes some less common triggers and any type of processed food. I can barely enjoy eating anywhere and have to scour the menu everywhere.

My acne would probably be described as mild/very mild at time but the flareups can be all over the body/face and in weird places. They are clearly immune response bumps/acne and itching often precedes and accompanies them.

I feel desperate because I have been to every doctor under the sun, except a gastroenterologist. Kind of loathe to go to one because it seems like they are very Western. I have had it with Western doctors to try to help my skin reactions at this point. But I do remember trying HCL pills with meals and needing to take huge amounts (at least 8, sometimes more) per meal to come close to a burning sensation. I remember these working quite well and me getting fed up with them and giving up on it because they didn't totally work (highly processed foods still broke me out) and because I didn't wanna take huge quantities per meal. Now that I have tried everything else, I have come back to HCL pills, and am positive my issue lies in a digestive problem, of which low stomach acid is a/the problem.

My main dilemma/depressing thought process is this though: I have been so convinced that my problem is digestive that I have looked into digestive disorders and of course discovered Leaky Gut and Candida; on one level I really don't want to have these because they seem very hard to cure and would require more than temporary HCL supplementation (most people who have low stomach acid seem to be able to re-train their stomach to produce adequate acid after a few months)

But I don't want to lie to myself, however I don't have many of the symptoms associated with Leaky Gut or Candida and my problem does not seem that severe, aside from the skin flare-ups, I have minor digestive discomfort and issues but really not that bad that I would seek help for it alone. I guess my main question is this: Is it possible to have just a problem of Low Stomach Acid and NOT Leaky Gut or Candida? I'm really thinking of doing a long term HCL supplementation then. But I have now terrified myself into thinking I have Leaky Gut/ Candida. The thing that doesn't make sense is , only certain foods cause me to have this immediate sort of immune reaction, how does my body know which foods are dangerous if it is leaky gut and they are in my bloodstream? The traditional foods to stay away from on a leaky gut/candida diet are not the same as the ones that bother me. For instance, alcohol and coffee do not cause a reaction; yogurt which is recommended does. On the other hand, one could apply this same question to low stomach acid. Unless the foods I react to happen to be particularly hard to digest or something (dairy, sugar, eggs, corn etc.)

Anyone, please help! Is it possible I just have low stomach acid? The pills did seem to help quite a bit, but not completely. I always assumed not completely because the autoimmune, fast reaction meant I necessarily had leaky gut/candida. But my other symptoms are not nearly as bad/numerous as you would think. Is it possible to have a quick reaction like that to certain foods and it just be Low Stomach Acid?