Hello, i'm new to this forum, and hopefully i'll be able to get some good answers from you.
Currently I'm 20, and i'll be 21 at the end of the year. I used to have acne in my face and also chest and back, and I took the accutane treatment for almost 10 months, finally erasing it all from my body. Then, after 6 months, I started taking workout supplements like animal pak (Multivitamins) and also whey protein. After almost one or two months using that supplements, I had another acne breakout. I went to my dermatologist and he told me that I would need to take another accutane treatment, for 7 months. I made it, finally finishing my second accutane treatment and getting rid of the acne again. My doctor told me to NEVER get any type of workout supplement again, because I would get acne again. I would love to get supplements again because I love it, but I'm really scared to get acne again, and starting another treatment. I would like to hear some opinions. Thanks.
I've recently added another whey protein shake to my diet to increase calories and it resulted in the worst breakout I've had in a long time (I have mild-moderate acne - had the worst of it come and go but it still persists). However this is also within the same period of time with a massive increase in stress.
I have read a lot about dairy and acne, and stress and acne so it could be either. But personally - I'm cutting out dairy from my diet and hopefully stress from my life .
In relation to your query though, I think it is entirely dependent on your own personal circumstances and how your skin reacts - e.g I noticed that taking two protein shakes with milk a day instead of one coincided with my skin breaking out with spots. It could just be correlation and not causation - with the actual cause being stress, but I'm going to cut dairy completely out of my diet and see how my skin responds.
Also, in relation to supplements, they are just that - supplementary - and you can achieve good results in terms of building muscle, losing fat or increasing general fitness levels without them.
I don't know if dairy, and therefore whey protein, can cause acne (my suspicion is that if it does it is so minimal you wouldn't care about it). I've been using various proteins derived from milk for over 5 years now and my acne has not worsened because of it. Anything else though, multi vits, pre workouts etc will not worsen your acne, though if you buy them you're just buying into marketing hype anyway - I hate to think how much those animal vits are. You're actually in a similar position to me, breaking out again after 2 cycles of tane. What the answer is I don't know but I wouldn't worry about supps one bit
Hello, i'm new to this forum, and hopefully i'll be able to get some good answers from you.
Currently I'm 20, and i'll be 21 at the end of the year. I used to have acne in my face and also chest and back, and I took the accutane treatment for almost 10 months, finally erasing it all from my body. Then, after 6 months, I started taking workout supplements like animal pak (Multivitamins) and also whey protein. After almost one or two months using that supplements, I had another acne breakout. I went to my dermatologist and he told me that I would need to take another accutane treatment, for 7 months. I made it, finally finishing my second accutane treatment and getting rid of the acne again. My doctor told me to NEVER get any type of workout supplement again, because I would get acne again. I would love to get supplements again because I love it, but I'm really scared to get acne again, and starting another treatment. I would like to hear some opinions. Thanks.
Yo Kevin, good to hear you got rid of your acne with Accutane... that's a big deal. Now, I've got an issue with your doc saying that you should never get *any type* of supplement again. Imo, that's pretty ignorant of what's out there. A lot of the mass-marketed supps are concoctions of all kinds of chemicals, isolates, etc. that can be horrible for your body because they're basically just chemical slush never meant to be consumed by humans in large quantities. But, you can get all kinds of protein powders and multi vites that are very beneficial for you. I know Animal Pak is well known and widely used, but I think it's overkill. I used to use Animal Pak back in the day and had the worst acne I've ever had while using it. I went with another multi that had no iodine or iron in it and a lot, but not all, of that bad acne went away within a month. Whey is generally considered the least useful of any kind of protein powder you can buy mostly because whey dumps amino acids into your blood all at once (your body absorbs whey's aminos within 1-2 hours after you take it, which is not enough time to synthesize muscle tissue), whereas normal food like steak leaches it into your blood over the course of 8-14 hours. This means your body can synthesize muscle tissue over that 8-14 hour time frame. So whey should be coupled with another type of protein like egg or casein to work throughout the day, but that's beside the point. There are plenty of more natural proteins you can use that are much better for you... soy, egg, hemp, rice, pea, etc. Btw, I have never done Accutane and don't know much about it, but it sounds like 7-8 months of not having acne after doing a treatment is really good. I'd think multiple treatments would be necessary thru one's life anyway.
I don't know if dairy, and therefore whey protein, can cause acne (my suspicion is that if it does it is so minimal you wouldn't care about it). I've been using various proteins derived from milk for over 5 years now and my acne has not worsened because of it. Anything else though, multi vits, pre workouts etc will not worsen your acne, though if you buy them you're just buying into marketing hype anyway - I hate to think how much those animal vits are. You're actually in a similar position to me, breaking out again after 2 cycles of tane. What the answer is I don't know but I wouldn't worry about supps one bit
I don't think that buying multi vites is buying into marketing hype. Working out depletes nutrients and eating food can help replenish nutrient levels in the body, but it's difficult to get all the nutrients you need in order to grow from eating if you work out and don't use a multi. Multis will usually help to supplement your daily nutritional intake. You can certainly workout without a multi / protein powder, but it's not optimal. Pre-workouts are definitely hyped though lol... eating a big meal a couple hours before a workout does the "pre-workout nutrition job" much better than protein just prior.
I'm not saying don't take a multi vitamin (though I personally do not because it's just ingredients for very expensive urine), but I am saying do not buy the ones animal market. They are ridiculously over priced. The bodybuilding supplement market is so reliant on advertising I think you'd be foolish to buy any well known brand. If you're in the US, truenutrition is the way to go
Your doctor is right.
Can you explain me why?
The point of most workout supplements is to artificially stimulate androgens (testosterones). Excess androgenic activity = acne.
Yes but it's not irreversible - the OP shouldn't need to go on accutane to fix the problem if it's driven by a transient increase in androgens. The simple solution, if the doctor's hypothesis is correct, would be to simply avoid milk products. But I think this is more a case of acne coming back after accutane, which happens far too often.
I'm not saying don't take a multi vitamin (though I personally do not because it's just ingredients for very expensive urine), but I am saying do not buy the ones animal market. They are ridiculously over priced. The bodybuilding supplement market is so reliant on advertising I think you'd be foolish to buy any well known brand. If you're in the US, truenutrition is the way to go
Ok, I gotcha... Animal Pak I guess works to a degree but it seems like it's overkill both in amount of minerals and in cost! True Nutrition (used to be True Protein) is imo the best way to get supplements... I definitely agree with you. That's where I get all of mine! The founder is a good guy. If you're looking for protein, look at True Nutrition's "Team Skip."