Hi Everyone,
Have you ever had acne clear in the summer then come back in the fall? Do you live in the northern hemisphere? I just had one of the clearest skin summers of my life, I mean no acne at all and now it's coming back with vengeance as soon as temperatures started going down. I've had cystic acne since I was 14 and now I am in my late thirty's but it has calmed down quite a bit since my teen years. I still feel self conscience when I go to the beach and have to take off my shirt because I am darker skinned so I have horrible hyper pigmentation on my back. This year I said screw it I am going to lay in the sun and burn those scars on my back. Well haha being darker skinned and no sunblock for the first time in my life I burned by back lol. But something interesting happened, my skin after that day completely cleared up! I mean my whole body and face not just my back! I should also mention that I was outside alot after that too tending my masive yard. Fast forward to today, working at the office being indoors most of the time because it is cold outside and started suffering with bouts of depression and sebaceous cysts! A couple months ago I saw a few forum and blog entries about how people were clearing their skin with Vitamin D3. I had tried Vitamin D3 before and it made my cystic acne worse so of course I counted as another vitamin that didn't work. I kept thinking about how my skin was clear in the summer and I was eating what ever I wanted, even ice cream! Now if I eat ice cream I am guaranteed a cyst that same day. So I found a book called the "The Miraculous Results of Extremely High Doses of Vitamin D3" and through reading it the author said after high doses if Vitamin D3 a sebaceous cyst he had for 5 years disappeared! Now a lightbulb went off. So I was taking 5000 UI but upped it to 10,000 UI for a week. Didn't really do anything until I upped it to 20,000 UI and my normally bucket of oil skin was a lot less oily by the afternoon! But I got scared because I havent had anyD3 tests yet and dropped back down to 10,000 UI. I stayed on this for a few weeks and my face started to look way better but I would still get the occasional cyst. My skin that was bumpy from all the overactive sebaceous glands started to become more smooth. Then I found these articles:
https://www.medicaljournals.se/acta/content/html/10.2340/00015555-2525
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4708967/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4580068/
So according to this research paper, extra Vitamin D3 seems to slowdown sebum production. One of the interesting observations in this article is that it also inducesautophagy. This means that Vitamin D3 can cause the sebaceous gland to rebuild itself! Very intriguing! Other articles show the relationship between low vitamin D3 status and severity of acne. You are welcome to go to PubMed and do your own research as there is a lot of good information there.
Disclaimer: I do not suggest anyone do what I am doing unless they are consulting a doctor for advice.
So now daily I am taking 20,000UI of dry vitamin D3 and 360mcgof Vitamin K2 (M7) to both try to slowdown sebum production, reduce inflamation, move calcium around so it goes where it needs to go, and rebuild my sebaceous glands. 1000mg of vitamin C and 90mg of zinc picolinate (which helped a little on it's own) to aid in remodeling my skin cells and hopefully decrease scars. And since I am taking vitamin D3, it uses magnesium to convert to the active form of vitamin D3 so I also rub on 400-600mg of magnesium oil. I should note that I am also taking 30mg of p5p to treat my self diagnosed Pyroluria. I have also resumed taking claritin as it seems to help with my inflammation (and my allergies).
Very important notes: you MUST take vitamin K2 with vitamin D3 to prevent toxicity! Also the vitamin K2 will remove excess calcium from you blood and soft tissues including skin and put it into your bones. Timing of taking the supplements is also important for example, take D3 in the morning as it will keep you up at night if take it too late and take magnesium only at night unless you want to be sleepy all day.
One last thing, I will eventually get tested for my Vitamin D3 levels but for now will use my skin as a feedback mechanism to reduce or increase my dosage. Once I clear the last cyst that I have on my face, I will drop my zinc dosage to 30mg a day and only take it at night before bed on an empty stomach.
Update:
I updated the original post because after doing some more research, I found that the M4 version of vitamin K2 is better for the skin. I also found a few people in other forums (non-acne related) that said it made their skin very smooth. I had originally started using a brand with vitamin d3 and vitamin k2 mk4 but it was in liquid form and a pain to take with the dosage I was using so instead I was using a brand of d3 with vitamin k2 m7 in capsule form instead. As of 2 days ago I went back to using the liquid with the vitamin k2 m4 to see if it would make a difference. I believe because now I am using twice the dosage I was using before, 20K UI of D3 and 4mg of K2 (m4), I have already noticed my skin starting to change. One thing I noticed is that it is starting to peel a little and is less oily. I used to have to blot several times a day now maybe just once. The huge cyst that grew to a diameter of a nickel has softened so hopefully with a bombardment of BP and warm epson salt compresses it will go away. Had a bunch of tiny pimples on my forhead forming and now they are crystallized? By the way for topicals, just using Neutrogena products with salicylic acid, pink grapefruit scrub and moisturizer. This seems like the only thing that consistently works! I tried natural and botanical stuff and gave me the gift of more acne and the cyst I have today. Also my diet has been varied lately but I restrict sugar and wheat, and completely stay away from unfermented milk products.
One last thing, I noticed right away that my normally puffy pores next to my nose are becoming more flat everyday 🙂 Also taking this vitamin D3 had other effects like riding me of my back pain I've had since my teenage years, no more migraines lately, and my shoulder I injured years ago doesn't hurt anymore! I have been on 10,000 UI of D3 since November.
Hi all,
So finding the right vitamin D3 with k2 has been a challenge. In the past the form of vitamin D3 that actually made my skin significantly LESS oily by the afternoon as been the dry form with vitamin k2-m7. I've only been on the liquid D3 with k2-m4 for a few days and now it feels like my progress is going backwards and a indicator for me that something isn't working is I get a breakout on my back first then my face. After doing a bit more research about vitamin k2-m4, I finally found a scientific paper that shows k2-m7 actually produces more k2-m4 than k2-m4 itself.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3502319/
Also found that dry vitamin D3 may actually work better. Now looking back over the past month, I don't think the liquid really helped much but the dry form did have some immediate results. I started with the dry form then switched to the liquid thinking it would work better but I may have been wrong. Lol trial and error. I am also going try to cutout nightshades from my diet as the produce too much of the active form of vitamin D called calcitrol and have been known to cause lots of inflammation due to calcium buildup in soft tissues. Nightshades include white potatoes (not sweet potatoes), tomatoes, eggplant, and all peppers (not peppercorns). Lol man this is a crazy puzzle, too much active d and you breakout, not enough of inactive d and you breakout. We'll see what happens after a week so stay tuned.
PS finally lanced, BPed, and cortisoned the cyst I had till it is almost gone so hopefully this treatment will prevent anymore from popping up.
Hi All,
Unfortunately I have to stop this experiment for now as I have developed some heart issues. My cardiologist doesn't believe my high dose vitamin D3 and K2 have anything to do with it as I had these heart issues long before this experiment. He is suggesting NO supplements until further testing is done so they don't mess up the test results. This is very unfortunate because I had a week of completely acne free skin on my face and back which I haven't had since last summer. My skin was still oily but clear. If anything I may have proved my theory correct but now it may be a month or 2 before I can try again and by then the sun would have returned. Maybe instead of supplements, perhaps a UV lamp? Sucks because my skin is breaking out again being on NO supplements and even though I'm eating healthy to protect my heart. I beg anyone that feels vitamin D3 may benefit them please consult with your general practitioner doctor first.