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My Experience - What worked for me

MemberMember
3
(@pablo101)

Posted : 01/11/2017 8:03 pm

Hello all,

Long time viewer, first time poster.

Keeping this as simple as I can, here is a background to my skin, my experiences on the regimen and my learnings that I want to pass onto all of you currently fighting acne.

Up until the age of 23, I had mile acne. I wasn't covered in it, however I was prone to big cystic pimples, irritation and my shoulders were in a bad way. I loosely tried various ways to fix it, but in the end I think I just grew out of it. While my skin substantially cleared up, it was never perfect and I was always wary that on any particular morning I could wake up with a break out of 3 or 4 large cystic pimples. In between those break outs however, things were good and I was content, I had gotten use to living like that it was the norm for me.

At the start of last year, at 27 years of age, I had a break out like I was prone to. 3 large pimples around my chin formed and it took 2 weeks for them to subside. A week after that, I had another break out, this time worse. This continued to happen until March when I began to realise that I was now suffering from full blown acne. Cycstic acne was popping up all over my face, chest and back, while under the skin I could feel it festering. I had never been so low and embarrassed, here I was turning up to work at 28 years of age looking worse than pubescent kids going to school. One Doctor said it could be a staff infection, another said it was rosacia until finally in May I admitted to myself that it was acne and looked into how best to deal with it.

I won't go through all of the methods that I tried, but I will only talk about what worked. Here are 4 main steps that I took that completely transformed my face in the space in a matter of months:

 

  1. Benzoyl Peroxide
    When I came across this page, obviously I was over the moon. I rushed to the shop and grabbed myself all of the ingredients and began the process. It worked, maybe not as quickly as I wanted it to, but it worked. I had issue like everybody else, I overdid it trying to speed the process up and ended up causing irritation to my face and burning it in places. Despite always having oily skin, it completely dried out, was sore and pimples were still coming through. Now that I've found my solution to the irritation though, see below, I absolutely swear by this product. My girlfriend now uses it as well as other people in my family and it's worked wonders for them, so please stick it out. It took 4 months for some of the lumps under my skin to completely go away, so you just have to be patient.

     

  2. Cutting out Dairy
    At my lowest point, I was sitting at work one day pulling my hair out trying to figure out what I had changed, what could be causing my face to look how it was. That was when I realised all that had changed from the year before was that I had switched my breakfast over from toast to cereal (with milk), had started taking whey protein shakes again (more milk and dairy) and was drinking more coffee (more milk again). I did a quick search in google to see if there was any connection between the 2 and came across article after article of people talking about the effects dairy had on their skin. Now I don't want to sit here and argue about the science behind it, it doesn't matter to me. For every person that says dairy does cause acne, another person is adamant that it doesn't. All I know is that I cut it out of my diet and my skin improved out of this world. While the acne on my face may have been controlled by the benzoyl, I wasn't doing anything different on my back and it too was improving. Fast forward 6 months and now I only have almond milk in my coffee and cereal, I avoid eating cheese regularlyand I drink pea protein shakes instead of whey protein. Small changes that make no real difference to my life that actually work. A few weeks ago over Christmas I went back to milk (away on holidays and it was all that was in the fridge) and I had my first mini break out for the first time in months. If you are serious about your skin and want to do what you can, try it. Give it 3 months, don't expect results over night and see for yourself the impact that it was.

     

  3. Washing my hair every night before bed
    This last change I made was more a theory of my own and using common sense, but it coincided with the turnaround in my skin. For whatever reason, I got into the habit of leaving my hair gel in overnight and washing it in the morning. Thinking about this logically, I would then lie on my pillow and press my face against it during the course of the night, most probably clogging my pores in the process. Keen to avoid this I now make sure my hair is clean every night before bed and it appears to be working.

     

  4. Avoid using Acne.com products
    In Australia we can buy Benzoyl Peroxide off the shelves in the form of a cream called Benzac. This is what I started my regime with, Benzac cream, Cetaphil cleanser and various moisturises (no real preference). Combining these and following the steps of the regime, I started to see results and got excited. Despite knowing it would take time, I wanted it faster and all of the commentary from Dan on Acne.com was that for the best results I should be using his own products as they are what work best. So I bit the bullet, paid a fortune for shipping and had the Benzoyl peroxide delivered, 2 massive tubes that would last me months. Like the instructions show, I built up the amount I used until I was lathering my face with the stuff. The problem was though, for the first time in months, my skin was irritated and seemed to be going backwards. I tried reducing the amount, using it only once a day, but nothing would work. While my skin was still relatively clear, I didn't want to have dry irritated skin for the rest of my life. It actually looked noticeably sore. Unable to ride it out, after a month I looked on line to see when people were reporting that their skin got used to the products and the irritation died down. Instead I realised that there were 100's of posts from people out there who have been using Dan's products for years and still can't get rid of the irritation. It was at that point I realised that Dan's products aren't the best. Without being a cynic, basic sense tells you that if you were selling a product, you would convince your audience that it is the best product on the market, the only product that really works and you would also encourage your audience to use as much of it as possible so they have to buy more sooner. That is effectively what Dans Regimen does, it encourages you to use far more than anywhere else does and constantly reminds you that for best results, you need to use his products. Eager to make a change I switched back to 5% Benzac from my local chemistand the results are utterly amazing. My skin is soft, there is no irritation at all and even if I miss a week of moisturising, my skin isn't dry. Stuck with 1.5 tubes of Dans stuff, I decided to give them to my girlfriend to use. She had run out of Benzac and only required a minor amount on her skin so figured she might have some more success than I had. A month later she gave it back, questioning whether it even worked and claiming that her face had gotten that dry it hurt to smile. She's now back using Benzac and her skin too is perfect.

     


Fast forward a year, my skin is blemish free. I actually don't get pimples at all, there isn't a single mark on my face or back and my girlfriends is heading in the same direction. I actually forgot how it felt to have clear skin and it hasn't been like this since I was an early teenager. I no longer stress about waking up with a cyst or a break out and I never thought I would get to this stage.

 

 

In summary, my regimen is as follows:

 

  1. Small amount (10c piece) of Benzoyl Peroxide in the form of Benzac applied once a day before bed to my cheeks and chin.

     

  2. Avoid milk and dairy products.

     

  3. Ensure hair products are washed out of hair every night before bed.

     

  4. Avoid using Acne.com products and stick to the products actually stocked on shelves.

     

Any questions, please just ask. Happy to help anyone that might need it.

 

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MemberMember
599
(@delovely)

Posted : 01/17/2017 9:24 pm

Thanks for sharing what's been working for you with our community! Best wishes for continued success!! |::)

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MemberMember
50
(@ahaguru)

Posted : 01/24/2017 3:49 pm

I'm glad to hear your success story! thanks for sharing!. yes hormones in nonorganic dairy do make things worse. I have to say from my experience organic dairy doesn't cause acne! it's nonorganic, loaded with hormones that ruin our lives!

DeLovely liked
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