Hello everyone!
First time posting in this forum because I need advice and suggestions! I've been a vegan for about a month now. Really, I stumbled upon it. After doing a lot of research trying to find a cure to my acne, I decided to give up dairy. Looking for dairy free recipes led to a lot of vegan recipes, so I just stopped eating meat too since it wasn't needed in these recipes. In about 2 weeks, I saw a huge improvement in my skin. Even to this day, I have not had a major breakout like I did before changing my diet. My acne used to be very inflamed, sometimes cystic, and it took a long time to heal. I realized the added artificial hormones in these foods were not doing anything beneficial for my body and my skin showed its gratitude. lol.
However, I started seeing a few whiteheads here and there after 2 1/2 weeks. They went away super fast and were never red or anything. But then I started getting small red spots here and there and it's increased slightly lately. They're nowhere as bad as it used to be and I'm so thankful for it but there is obviously something in my diet that is not agreeing with me. I have done research and have found out about soy products sometimes causing acne because of the phytoestrogens it contains. I am on birth control (Lo Loestrin) so I don't think I need anything that will add to my estrogen "count", if you will. So I'm avoiding soy for now. For about a month now, I increased my Evening Primrose Oil and Vitamin E dosage to 2000 mg a day. I started taking 2000 mg of Flax Oil about 3 weeks ago. And I take 10,000 IU of vitamin A and 400 IU of Vitamin D daily. I thought the vitamins were helping me a lot when my skin was looking good but now I'm not so sure. I've been doing research about the oils I'm taking and it seems that EPO and Flax Oil both contain a form of estrogen whether its in phytoestrogens (EPO) or lignans (Flax Oil). Now I'm thinking of just stopping my intake of these oils- maybe my estrogen level is too high? I just want to find the root cause of my acne. I have a huge suspicion that it's hormonal. I started getting acne at 12- after I got my period. I had cystic acne for a long time before using topicals. I would breakout around my menstrual cycle and the only thing that helped keep it under control was BC. But not for long, since I was eating dairy and meat. Now that that's gone, I've just gotta find out what's going on with my hormones. Unfortunately, I can't really see a doctor right now so every realistic solution has to undergo trial and error.
I really appreciate everyone's help! Thanks so much!
-Nikky
Probably not the phytoestrogens, but the antigenic proteins in soy. Lots of people are sensitive to soy, and get acne from it. If you want to round out your diet, I would replace soy products with some safe meats - fish and beef liver are two great sources of nutrition, and supply some of the vitamins you would be missing from a vegan diet.
Hormonal acne is usually cystic anyway. A few inflammatory spots here and there could be more indicative of a specific food sensitivity.
First of all, one month being vegan will not undo years of not being vegan. So you shouldn't expect lasting results until at least a few months into your new diet.
Second of all, one month vegan will not cause estrogen dominance. Veganism does not necessarily correlate with high estrogen, I haven't seen conclusive an convincing studies to back this up. If you are worried about too many xenoestrogens (the bad kind -some forms of estradiol are actually beneficial to skin), try taking DIM.