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Quitting Birth Control (pics)

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(@mehyabbers)

Posted : 07/10/2018 10:16 pm

Let this be the beginning of my birth control free life.

Been takin' a yaz generic for four years. Basically completely cleared my skin up. I only get small break outs around my period or if I have a lot of sugar. Before birth control I had mostly moderate but at times severe acne since I started puberty. I was 20 when I started it and now I'm 24. 

I'm trying to be more health conscious overall so I'd like to stop taking it and solve my acne naturally. I've heard acne gets a lot worse after stopping and your hormones don't balance out for like a year. 

I'll be updating this post weekly-ish and I'm gonna store my pictures here to monitor the progress. I'm three days in at the moment. Please feel free to share your acne experiences and ditching birth control! 

Anyone else going off the pill too? Let's tackle this thing together! :) 

Pic is today.

 

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(@desmonaea)

Posted : 07/18/2018 12:39 am

Please post updates! I quit birth control about a year ago? Still struggling with acne breakouts, but haven't gone to a doctor yet (it's hard affording them...) I wish you the best of luck in this journey! It seems to really mess up the hormones and cause breakouts more, but here's hoping you won't have to deal with that. Good luck, sweetheart!

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(@mehyabbers)

Posted : 07/29/2018 9:25 pm

Aww dang. Sorry to hear you're still struggling. Here's a couple pics from today. I'm 4 weeks off bc. 

I hear the acne really starts to come back after about three months... So we'll see. 

Things I'm currently doing to keep my acne at bay:
Flax seed supplement
B Vitamin
Daily vitamin
Facial brush once a day w/ biore salicylic acid scrub
Washing face w/ African black soap in between scrubs (if extra sweaty or dirty) 
Also I stopped wearing make up (aside of eyemakeup) prolly about 9 months ago. 
Using retinol moisturizer when needed
And lastly... doing my best not consume dairy or sugar. 

My face is slightly more zitty. Primarily on cheeks and chin. Still not bad though. 

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(@thebean)

Posted : 07/31/2018 5:06 am

When I was younger, the doctor put me on Ortho Tricyclen. At the time, it was the brand of choice, known for clearing acne... he was like, "it will keep the acne at bay too!" I was like, "I don't have acne."
Went I went off that pill about two years later, I broke out all in my cheeks for about 6 months. It GAVE me acne when taken off. Awesome. I've gone on and off other brands, before and after that with no issues.
I recently read about grapefruit. It apparently lowers testosterone and increases estrogen to some degree in ALL women, it can significantly reduce the imbalance in women with pcos... it works by enzyme action in the gut, triggering the body (or gut bacteria?) to transform the excess T into E. The acne connection is anecdotal at this point, but it makes sense.

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(@mehyabbers)

Posted : 08/01/2018 12:20 pm

Hmm. Maybe I'll try grapefruit!

One thing I've definitely noticed since I've been off is my face is SO DISGUSTINGLY OILY. I've never had oily skin before this.

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(@leelowe1)

Posted : 08/02/2018 10:03 am

It's definitely an adjustment period when getting of BC, especially when you're acne prone. It can take 6-12 months for your body to start regulating itself (from my personal experience). How are you going to be treating your acne moving forward? I have oily skin too in addition to acne. I'm on Spiro and trying to figure what to do once i get off it (in the next few weeks) as i am still breaking out while on it (quite badly at the moment).

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(@mehyabbers)

Posted : 08/09/2018 12:03 pm

On 8/2/2018 at 11:03 AM, leelowe1 said:

It's definitely an adjustment period when getting of BC, especially when you're acne prone.  It can take 6-12 months for your body to start regulating itself (from my personal experience).  How are you going to be treating your acne moving forward?  I have oily skin too in addition to acne.  I'm on Spiro and trying to figure what to do once i get off it (in the next few weeks) as i am still breaking out while on it (quite badly at the moment).

How long have you been off birth control? 

I made a post up there ^^ that says everything I'm currently doing to try to keep it at bay. Honestly my plans are hope it doesn't get worse and if it does... deal with then. I'm open to going to a dermatologist for topical treatments or maybe a holistic nutritionist AFTER I've waited until the birth control is out of my system (maybe a year, like you said) but for now I just want to ride it out with clean-eating (kind of) and drugstore facial scrubs.

I refuse to take anymore pills. The only way I'd go back on a pill is if my acne was really severe and causing me depression. Which it has caused depression before... but I've never had cystic acne I don't think. It's always been generally smaller bumps ALL over my cheeks and chin. Probably 2-3 new bumps per day that wouldn't go away for three weeks or more.

I'm going to search for some pictures just to see how bad it actually was. 

There might be chance that I'll have naturally clear skin in my adult life. I've had acne since puberty and I've been on/off birth control probably since like nineteen?? I'm almost 25 so maybe if I just let it do it's own thing and eat clean it'll go away... ? That'd be cool.

Anyway. Here's today. Still relatively clear and tolerable. About 6 weeks off birth control.  

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(@mehyabbers)

Posted : 09/02/2018 4:16 pm

Bout time I do an update. What has it been... roughly two months? My skin is a bit worse and my chin has taken the brunt of it. I could probably chalk this up to neglecting my diet lately though. 

Is anyone following this? If not at least I'll have a record for myself. -shrug-

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(@skye34)

Posted : 09/09/2018 3:48 am

I'm also going through the post pill acne journey....came off the pill in Nov 2017 having been on it for 17 years! At first my skin was fine, then after about 3 months off the pill I started breaking out in spots constantly. First all over my forehead. I eventually got this under control using a benzoyl peroxide cream and my head is pretty much clear now. But now my chin and jaw line is the problem. I have lots of little spots and 1 or 2 sore red lumps under the skin. Unfortunately the BP cream doesn't seem to be shifting it on my chin. Also got red marks from where old spots are healing, plus get new ones every day.It's ruining my self esteem.
Think I'm going to go to the doctors as I'm fed up of this now, just really don't want to go on the pill as I don't want to stop my body from ovulating.
I really hope you don't have to experience this!

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(@mehyabbers)

Posted : 09/19/2018 11:17 pm

Sorry to hear you're still struggling with it! I'm about to hit the 3 month mark in about 2 weeks. I'll definitely post an update around then.

I have more acne then when I did when I was on birth control but it's still not bad. Just on my cheeks and chin when I eat too much sugar really.

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(@mehyabbers)

Posted : 09/26/2018 9:30 pm

It's getting bumpy over here guys.

3 months in about 10 days.

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(@mehyabbers)

Posted : 10/03/2018 12:14 pm

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I'm 3 months in at this point and definitely noted some changes for the worse.

I broke out last Wednesday pretty bad. Here's a pic ^^. 

The break outs were very red and they hurt and just didn't seem to want to heal up. So Saturday evening I decided to go paleo. I've been paleo for five days now and I'm already seeing a difference if that's possible. I haven't gotten any new pimples since before. I do have a lot of tiny, tiny bumps all over my cheeks. Not sure if those are recent or if they've been there since last week. But you can't even really seen them unless you're looking. 

I'll post pics of today in a moment. 

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(@mehyabbers)

Posted : 10/03/2018 12:31 pm

This is today. The first side is the one ^^ up there. As you can see I still have 3 large blemishes but I also was scratching and picking at them. 

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You can see that I have quite of bit of miniscule bumps but everything else is healing up very nicely. Will update on paleo diet in a couple weeks. Any advice is welcome!

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(@ells213)

Posted : 01/21/2019 5:42 pm

I'd love to see an update from the last few months :)

I've been on yasmin coming upto 6 months and I'm starting to see some good results but I'm getting a strong feeling I should quit it and try and treat my hormonal acne naturally. I only went on the pill for my hormonal acne as I was so desperate but now I wish I'd just tried to treat it naturally in the first place because now I'm terrified to come off it because I know my acne will come back but potentially 10 times worse :(

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(@judy_adleryahoo-com)

Posted : 02/20/2019 3:02 pm

Are you able to give an update? Your pictures and info are very helpful!

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(@bubblyxkitten)

Posted : 02/20/2019 6:15 pm

I stopped taking birth control pills. It was alright for three months and then my face turned into a cystic mess. I am on my first week of Yasmin right now. Nothing topical or natural has ever worked for my skin. Do you have PCOS?

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(@phalishak)

Posted : 04/01/2019 5:50 am

Hello! Do you have an update for us?

This thread has been super useful and interesting as I'm currently 2 weeks off birth control and trying to plan for the chaos that's about to come. I've changed my diet by cutting out refined sugars, simple carbs and dairy and I've included loads of healthy fats so I'm hoping that will help to regulate my hormones.

Any advice you have since you're a few months down the line would be greatly appreciated!

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(@cupcakejess)

Posted : 05/28/2019 11:12 pm

I read that chaste berry extract helps balance hormones. I had been off of birth control for about 3 months, and my acne came back as bad as it had been in my teens. Not only that but I had bad depression with severe mood swings. I started using chaste berry for about a month, and already my acne is getting better and the depression has lifted. I would really recommend it.

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(@mehyabbers)

Posted : 09/07/2020 12:28 am

Hi all!

Wow I absolutely suck it's been like two years. 

So I caved in June of 2019 when I started a new job - went back on BC to clear my skin. I think I stopped taking it again after a short awhile so at this point I AM OFFICIALLY A YEAR FREE OF BIRTH CONTROL WOOHOOO.

Uh so. I have learned some things. if you are still struggling with acne and have not tried paleo, TRY PALEO.

Paleo absolutely cleared my skin 100%. It's difficult to follow I'll admit (especially when you're skeletor like me and you're trying to gain weight not lose it) but if you want to know if a diet change will benefit your skin, start with paleo.

Pic is my skin literally now, so uhh good not great. I shit on my diet recently though and ate a big ass bag of potato chips. Also period. Honestly, idk if there's any getting around that. I still break out when I get my period.

For skin care routine, I have switched to a more gentle approach. I use a spin brush once a day, all natural cleansers, I apply a moisturizer, anti-aging cream, and sunscreen daily. I'll exfoliate like once every 3 days or so. Oh and... acne patches are dope, go buy some.

As stated, I eat a MOSTLY paleo diet. I don't consume any dairy what so ever, I eat mainly whole foods - lots of fruit and fruit juices. Honey and any other natural sugars do NOT break me out. I have noticed that healthy grains don't really effect my skin so I consume rice, some granolas, & oatmeal. 

So in summary, be kind to your skin. Don't use harsh cleansers or scrub the shit out of your face, it's only going to make it more red/irritated and you'll hate yourself for it later. Eat healthy, whole foods. Absolutely stay away from sweets, sugary drinks (really anything ever with added sugar), fried shit, greasy shit, and dairy. 

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On 2/20/2019 at 6:15 PM, bubblyxkitten said:

I stopped taking birth control pills. It was alright for three months and then my face turned into a cystic mess. I am on my first week of Yasmin right now. Nothing topical or natural has ever worked for my skin. Do you have PCOS? 

As far as I know I do not have PCOS, though I've suspected it. I don't have a lot of the classic symptoms other than acne and heavy bleeding. 

 

Have you had any luck with diet changes?

Pic from average day before birth control and paleo diet. 

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(@abauer)

Posted : 11/30/2020 8:57 pm

Thank you so much for sharing your journey!! I stopped Junel birth control in August and started benzoyl peroxide and retinol daily. My cystic acne has come back full throttle. I am very close to starting birth control again which I am SUPER sad about as I wanted to quit birth control to be more natural and not add hormones into my body :( 

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(@ljunggren-matildagmail-com)

Posted : 01/05/2022 1:15 pm

Oh Ive been on yaz also for 4 years and decided to stop back in 2016. Skin was fine for a month or 2 then the acne came.. with force! Took 2 and a half years before my period was regular. Kind of been struggeling with the aftermath since. Ive truly tried everything you could possibly try to support the hormonal cycle and for the past 3 years I have it under control. Not a 100% clear though, always wishing and searching whats going on with my body.

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