Here are my updates:

Week 1:

Started out by taking only 2g (2 pills 2x/day). Saw no results and nothing changed. I am using the Swanson brand (500g).

Week 2:

No progress. Upped dosage to 4 grams and started taking acetyl L-carintine (total of 1g a day)

Week 3:

Started to break out a little. The breakouts are in the form of cysts which I don't usually get at all. There are 2 huge ones on my upper left cheek :S they do not come to a head and stay red and swollen much longer than anything I've had in the past year. I think this is what they call Purging.

Week 4:

Still breaking out pretty bad in cysts!! I never get cysts so this is terrible for me and making my skin look terrible. Hopefully it will get better soon. I upped the dose to 5 grams (2.5g taken 2x/day).

Weeks 5/6:

Well my skin has not gotten any better and in fact has gotten much, much worse. I am still getting whiteheads in addition with at least one or two new cysts every week that are extremely painful and do not come to a head. I haven't noticed any reduction in oil on my face either. Just when one heals another pops up. My forehead, which has always been pretty clear, has been the culprit over the past 2 weeks.

I am upping the dosage to a total of 8g/day spaced out throughout the day. (2g/ 4 times a day). I'm still taking the acetyl l-carnitine twice a day, total 1g.

I am quite discouraged at this process as I am embarrassed about going to work and having to see several doctors everyday with my face being such a mess :/

I've noticed combining vitamin a with the whole range of b vitamins works after taking them for about two months. Stop taking the cod liver oil, as that oil tends to help breakouts occur. Not sure why, but I've noticed it with various pure oils. Though get your balanced omega by taking flaxseed, ordinary amount. Youre taking excessive Zinc and beta carotene. Multivitamin could be bad depending on manufacturer and who knows the quality and where ti comes from. Skip it. Vitamin d isn't going to help.

So take 10k UI vitamin A and a multi-B vitamin pills at any health food store. Soloray is good. Take them for about two months. There are vitamin products specially designed just for acne you know.

Sorry, meant to say 50mg of zinc, and 10,000 ui of beta carotene. I will keep that in mind, however I am more comfortable taking beta carotene than vitamin A.

I am hoping to measure the effectiveness of b5 and L-carintine, so I will not be altering the intake of my other vitamins.

Thanks for the reply though!

Afaik vitamin B5 overdose works, but not at the low doses you started off with. You need to take 10g a day. I did it for about two weeks many years ago and it worked beautifully. But ultimately I could not risk the chances of side effects. If you google around you'll find tons of stories about people getting long-term hair loss from trying this (and the hair loss doesn't go away once they stop the overdose, which is the scary part). It seems there's a large risk that the overdose causes a shock to your system which causes telogen effluvium. I really would steer clear of this stuff. Stick to prescription mediciations please.

Week 7:

All the cysts and spots have now recovered and I have 0 active pimples. I have been clear before but it never stays that way. I am encouraged so hopefully it stays this way, but I could have just had a good week? Only time will tell I have been taking 8 grams for the past week.

Beautiful Day - I have read about hair loss and thinning hair. I decided to risk it because not everyone is affected and right now clear skin is very important to me. I think will start taking a b complex as well as biotin and hope that this helps reduce the risk of hair loss of thinning. Although I did read that biotin competes with pantothenic acid because they have a similar chemical structure. Once I stay clear I plan on reducing the amount of b5 in half. I appreciate the concern though

Beautiful Day:

I took a shower tonight and afterwards I ran my fingers through my hair. There were about 6 or so hairs that came out. I have been researching and reading about hairloss associated with b5 all day. I've come to the conclusion that you are absolutely right. For some it happens right away, others it takes years, but sure enough b5 will have a negative effect on hair. I'm not sure it's because of telogen effluvium exactly, but nobody can put their finger on why exactly it happens.

Since it's not healthy to stop it all together, I am going to reduce the dose slowly and get down to 1 or 2 grams. Hopefully this will help my acne and reduce any damage I already might have caused. I do appreciate your input and it made me look further into it, so thank you!

I will still be posting to update everyone on how things are going.

Beautiful Day - I have read about hair loss and thinning hair. I decided to risk it because not everyone is affected and right now clear skin is very important to me. I think will start taking a b complex as well as biotin and hope that this helps reduce the risk of hair loss of thinning. Although I did read that biotin competes with pantothenic acid because they have a similar chemical structure. Once I stay clear I plan on reducing the amount of b5 in half. I appreciate the concern though

Yes, I remember reading a lot about this kind of stuff. Unfortunately, it just amounts to broscience BS. Maybe long-term overdosing on B5 does cause a deficiency in the other B vitamins, although I imagine you'd get far worse side effects than simply hair loss if that were the case. It is entirely likely that the hairloss is not being caused specifically by a vitamin deficiency, but is simply due to the general physiological stress caused by the massive intake of a vitamin. People get hair loss conditions like telogen effluvium due to all sorts of stresses... childbirth, emotional disorders, etc.

To check whether you have some sort of hair loss disorder you need to do something called the "hair pull test." Google around for it. This is one write-up of it I found, although there are others. Link: http://www.fpnotebook.com/DER/Exam/HrPlTst.htm This video also shows it in action. Link:

EDIT: Ah, here's the post I first found many years ago. I get the feeling that it, or some similar explanation, is much more likely to account for the B5-hairloss phenomenon.

So I visited my dermatologist today regarding hair loss due to B5. He works at Tufts Medical Center in Boston with the Dermatology Department. His colleagues and him have seen many hair loss issues related to supplementing with all types of Vitamins.

The Department is aware of hair loss due to Vitamin B5. The cause of hair loss is actually Toxicity. They believe the toxicity is a result of a binding ingredient used in the Supplement that is not labeled on the bottle. They do not believe B5 is the actually cause of hair loss, but it may be. So when taken in high doses, your body becomes poisoned by the binding ingredient (or possibly B5) which causes TE (Telogen effluvium). TE is characterized by diffuse hair shedding. Generally, recovery is spontaneous and occurs within 6 months. My dermatologist said most people recover within 3-5 months, but there are a few cases where people do not recover. Mega-dosing for long periods of time increases the chances of non-recovery.

He explained that hair loss due to B5 (or the binding ingredient in the supplement) is not a Vitamin Deficiency! Therefore supplementing with Biotin or a B-Complex will not protect against the Hair Loss. Your body is poisoned and needs to naturally recover. The best ways he told me to recover are to exercise daily with lots of cardio (you need to sweat) and drink plenty of water. Supplementing with other vitamins, antioxidants, or oils will not stop or prevent the hair loss.

http://www.acne.org/messageboard/topic/287627-vitamin-b5-losing-hair/

Please for the love of god LOWER YOUR DOSAGE! I am supplicating you! I took 5g daily for three months and my hair started falling out. I was one of the lucky ones and my hair came back. I stopped taking B5 and obviously my acne came back, but it struck back with a persistent vengeance that I had never seen. I started taking a food based multivitamin with vitamin B5 in it (only 50mg) with a host of other things. My skin has cleared up tremendously. I can give you the name of the vitamin if you want, but whatever you do, I am imploring you that you drastically reduce your dosage. I'm a pretty good source on anything B5 so please message me or something before you do perminate damage to your body.

Please for the love of god LOWER YOUR DOSAGE! I am supplicating you! I took 5g daily for three months and my hair started falling out. I was one of the lucky ones and my hair came back. I stopped taking B5 and obviously my acne came back, but it struck back with a persistent vengeance that I had never seen. I started taking a food based multivitamin with vitamin B5 in it (only 50mg) with a host of other things. My skin has cleared up tremendously. I can give you the name of the vitamin if you want, but whatever you do, I am imploring you that you drastically reduce your dosage. I'm a pretty good source on anything B5 so please message me or something before you do perminate damage to your body.

Yes, I am lowering my dose slowly. It's not good to rapidly come off mega-dosing something. I am currently taking 2.5 grams a day and will get that down to 1 over the next week. I am currently acne free which is nice, so I want to continue taking it at 1g and hope that won't have any side effects

Week 8:

So I have reduced my dosing to 2g a day and things still seem to be going well! I had two pimples this week, 1 which wasn't noticeable at all and the other wasn't big until I picked at it :/ but it healed quickly and I am back to being clear again. I am going to stick with this dosing for a bit because I have not noticed hair loss, just maybe a bit of hair thinning but that just might be me being paranoid.

Week 9:

Still using 2g/day (1g in the morning and 1g at night). My acne has been better however I recently had a breakout. This could very well be from staying out late on the weekend drinking (both nights) and forgetting to take the pills as well as do the regimen. I have 3 spots which is very manageable and will clear up in a few days. Other than this setback my skin has been very good! Hopefully it was just from the drinking and forgetting my routine. Will report back next week!

Week 10:

Upped my dose again because I had better results with 4g. My hair has not been falling out and I had 1 pimple this week. Very small and manageable. Very happy with my skin I also added l-cysteine (1g/day) yesterday.

Week 10:

Upped my dose again because I had better results with 4g. My hair has not been falling out and I had 1 pimple this week. Very small and manageable. Very happy with my skin I also added l-cysteine (1g/day) yesterday.

If you get hair loss from oral B5, you can also use it topically to limit its effects to the face. The link in my signature "topicals for hormonal acne" has a vitamin B5 section that links to 3 different topical b5 serums.

Week 10:

Upped my dose again because I had better results with 4g. My hair has not been falling out and I had 1 pimple this week. Very small and manageable. Very happy with my skin I also added l-cysteine (1g/day) yesterday.

If you get hair loss from oral B5, you can also use it topically to limit its effects to the face. The link in my signature "topicals for hormonal acne" has a vitamin B5 section that links to 3 different topical b5 serums.

I am using BP topically already. I am not experiencing hair loss, just a bit of thinning which I can deal with.

Week 11:

Picked at my face to remove a very small pimple that did not need to be popped and suffered the consequence. It's now red and scabbing. But thats the only problem. Still very happy with my skin. I do notice my hair getting considerably thinner and even had some comments by friends I am once again going to reduce my dose to 2.5 grams a day. I just hope my hair doesn't start falling out which I am fearing.

Week 13:

Taking 4g a day. My hair is getting thinner, but not falling out or receding so I can deal with that. Over the past 2 weeks my skin has been very good for the most part. I think i've had 2 or 3 pimples and they have been very manageable. I did have one above my lip that was embarrassing and sucked, but it was probably because I drank both nights on the weekend and didn't do the regimen at night. I feel like pantothenic acid has been the only thing that has worked for me.

A point of clarification: what exactly do you mean when you say your hair is thinning, but not falling out? In thirteen weeks you hair will have grown about an inch. Is that inch thinner than the rest of your hair? Or is your hair actually falling out and you're calling that thinning?

A point of clarification: what exactly do you mean when you say your hair is thinning, but not falling out? In thirteen weeks you hair will have grown about an inch. Is that inch thinner than the rest of your hair? Or is your hair actually falling out and you're calling that thinning?

Yes, I am also confused. Perhaps the OP means the average width of his individual hairs is decreasing? That would be a pretty impressive detail to notice, lol.

OP, you won't notice your hairline receding even if you start getting hairloss on B5. A receding hairline is generally characteristic of male pattern baldness, which is a very, very different problem with very different causes than a general diffuse hair loss disorder caused by physical stresses.

By the way, Accutane would be far safer than what you're doing. You have no idea what the long-term repercussions of this are (I assume you're planning on overdosing indefinitely). Please quit and just go on Accutane.

Exactly, if you are experiencing random hairs falling out, TE or not, that's hair loss. It can be reversible, but it might take many years for your hair to grow back in fully. I've experienced "mild" (100+ hairs per day, yes, I counted...) hairloss on accutane and had to pause for months until it finally stopped. I wouldn't joke around with B5 if you're not under supervision of a dermatologist. If you find that one dermatologist isn't cooperative enough, find another one (it might take some looking, but enlightened derms do exist!), but treating yourself on your own isn't very smart.

My acne is not bad enough to use accutane. It's persistent but mild. I used to get about 2-3 small active pimples/week before and now I have 0-1. I am aware of the risks and I am willing to take them. My hair just looks a little bit thinner. It is not coming out in bunches or anything, however my scalp is more noticeable. I guess that's a bit of hairloss but I can deal with it as long as it doesn't get worse. In the shower when I run my hand through my hair I see approx. 2-4 hairs, which is nothing. I appreciate the concern, however I made this log to benefit others as well. The side effects, at least right now, are not significant enough to stop. Long term side effects could be very dangerous however there is no information available.

Week 16:

My acne is totally under control now! I have been using 4g and everything has been going great!! I haven't had any breakout in a long time and haven't had a pimple in a while. It feels fantastic to not have to worry about my face and I can now go out whenever and do my job feeling confident! Couldn't be happier. Hair loss is not an issue, and has not appeared any thinner than it was 2 months ago.

Update:

I feel like it's time for an update. I have found that 4-5g a day of b5 is the optimal amount for me. I no longer have big pimples and when I do get a break out it is very manageable and goes away fast. I just have to stop picking and scrutinizing over tiny little bumps that I squeeze even knowing it's making things worse. I would say I get 1 pimple a week on average. And it's usually small.

I also recently cut out milk, although i am still taking whey protein, which ill stop after the tub is finished, and it has definitely made a difference! I drink almond milk now and although it doesn't taste very good I know its worth it

Are you still using the B5? If so, how much and are you exhibiting any hair thinning still?