Summarized version of my success:
- No masturbation
- No daily hot showers; short cool showers after 2 days minimum
- No face washing or "skincare regimen" of any kind; the only thing that hits my skin is cool water when I shower (and of course washing my hands with soap, but that's it for my skin)
My story with detail:
Looking back, I realize I started having acne when I started masturbating. Over the next five years, I had many doctors give me all sorts of creams, pills, and so on - it all failed.
Last year, I got a new problem - seborrheic dermatitis. Now this was soul-crushing news, because I was told it was a chronic condition I already had acne that was seemingly getting worse, and now this! I took the medicated shampoo they gave me, which allievated the sympotms temporaily, but I didn't want to have put tar in my hair for the rest of my life!
In dealing with it, I noticed that my condition would flare up when I masturbated, and in desperation I decided to begin abstaining.
By the end of the second week the flare ups stopped, and I noticed that I hadn't had a new pustule on my face... for the first time in five years. So this was helping the SD and the acne. I continued with it, and noticed many, many other things that were changing in my life (stuff similar this: [Removed]).
Now this is about four months since I began my abstinence, and I do not have acne or seborrheic deramtitis. My acne marks have completely healed, too.
Clearly the masturbation began the mess that my life turned into in the five years it occupied. I have changed up some other habits, such as:
I go to bed earlier.
I have a shower every 2-7 days. Yeah, I sometimes don't shower for even longer. Seriously, we shower too much. And not only that, but we have hot long showers. Instead, I have it cool and short. Although I do not have it too cold, because I have heard that too cold can cause broken capiliaries in the skin.
I go out in the sun (sunscreen is bad, and so are sunglasses, although I wear sunglasses sometimes) and walk a lot. Walking is the best form of excercise. I do not eat at the computer, I stand up more instead of sitting down at the computer all the time (relevant to SD: [Removed]).
I once tried "diet" (to no fucking avail), but now I eat normal, without a care in the world about it, as it should be.
Phew. Well... After all that time... After all the regimens, meds, creams, doctors, "science"... What a waste of money and time.
P.S. I was shedding hair excessively by the time I got SD, and that ceased, too, when I began the abstinence. To think I could've lost my hair!