Non diet related acne? - PaleoHacks.com

Non diet related acne?

2012-09-07T22:15:55Z

Im a 19 year old male with mild acne.

Ive tried messing around with my diet and there seems to be no connection between what I eat and how bad my acne is.

This summer i traveled for 5 weeks in europe eating bananas organic yogurt and organic cheese as the staples of my diet and my face was clear

Now i come to school eating what i think is pretty good ( raw milk and kerrygold butter, GF beef, bone broth, liver eggs, vegetables, tubers and saurkraut) and my acne comes back.

Is it possible that my acne is not related to my diet and its just the result of... being 19?

Answer by onomonapetia for Non diet related acne?

2012-09-07T23:17:14Z

I don't have an exact answer for you, but I can tell you that for me, diet has nothing to do with it. If I eat SAD, I break out. I eat paleo, I break out. Nothing has made a difference (except for being pregnant, which obviously can't help you there..) Age most likely could be a factor, but then again, I'm 29 and I still get hormonal breakouts that take a whole month to heal! I wish I knew the answer. Maybe someone else can chime in:) Patience, in your case, is probably going to be your best friend.

Answer by plante for Non diet related acne?

2012-09-07T23:21:19Z

im in the same boat as you man. when i eat too much meat i tend to break out more often. ive started avoided all kinds of animals products and its helping. he might be a hormone imbalance too, i had acne really bad a year ago and the only thing that stopped it was birth control (cant help u there either haha) so its probably just hormones. talk to a doc or look up ways to get your hormones in check

Answer by stevianut for Non diet related acne?

2012-09-07T23:29:08Z

Are you stressed out at the moment? I don't really have bad skin but find my skin is clearer when I'm not stressed over homework, family or life in general. Your psychological state of mind triggers physiological responses and it might just be your stress is showing through your skin. It could also be the environment you're in if you don't wash your face everyday. I use a natural cleanser I bought from a health food store and moisturiser but I'm pretty sure you could use even simpler products for that :)

Answer by Spears for Non diet related acne?

2012-09-07T23:29:48Z

I suppose you could analyse the Kitavan "paleo" diet http://www.healwithfood.org/acne/kitava-acne-free-diet.php viz. the island where acne doesn't exist.

Glad this isn't my problem any more. There's no dairy / IGF-1 here or red meat. You could try 30 days of fish, coconut oil, tubers and the rest. A friend worked over in Saudi and the sun (or so I thought at the time) eradicated the worst acne I'd ever seen.

Answer by Savage Paleo for Non diet related acne?

2012-09-08T01:03:07Z

I had problems with acne for a whole year after starting paleo. I think for a lot of people it is just a phase that can't be completely corrected with diet. The thing I figured out that work for me was to stop washing my face with soap (only warm water) and putting diluted apple cider vinegar on my acne at night. Using soaps can be harsh on your face and cause your face to begin producing more oils.

Another thought is that your diet in Europe sounds like you may have been receiving more probiotics from the yogurt and cheese. Your getting some with the sauerkraut but you may want to try upping your probiotics with a supplement.

Answer by Robert for Non diet related acne?

2012-09-08T06:37:32Z

okay I didn't want to retype all my suggestions so I copied and pasted from my other reply to a similar question.

Hmm.... Well first off be sure you never touch your hands to your face if they are not clean. I would also change my pillow cases every single night. Look into MSM sulfur (but first be sure you don't have an allergy to it) It takes about 2 weeks to 2 month to see results but build yourself up to 6000 mg of MSM sulfur, (I like the jarrows powdered sulfur, its cheaper this way) start low each day increase about 500 mg until you hit 6000 mg. Cool thing about sulfur is its great for tissue reparation and muscle recovery (if you work out). Keep the skin hydrated, don't use harsh stuff like oxy, when you dry out your skin you also aggravate acne as well as drying your skin you will end up stimulating the sebaceous glands trying to hydrate the skin. Also using harsh stuff you strip of the acid mantle of your skin which is a bacterial barrier formed by the oils produced from your sebaceous glands which make a slightly acidic barrier on your skin. I would buy something really gentle to wash your skin something high quality stay away from anything they sell at cvs/walgreens I personally like "Dermalogica's Ultracalming cleanser". What you want to do is cleans the skin and remove excess oil and dirt without disrupting the acid mantle. Big mistake is the treatment for acne skin is extremely harsh when in fact acne skin is actually very sensitive skin! Use good moisturizer and maybe infuse it with a bit of essential oil like tea tree oil. (since essential oils have a naturally occurring antimicrobial component), lavender oil, calendula oil (which is soothing). just a few drops diluted in a tub of cream where you can "barely smell it". When you apply the cream from the tub always use a clean spatula or q-tips to transfer cream from jar to hands. NEVER apply essential oils to your skin (calendula may be ok) but most are irritating When moisturizing it may feel a little "heavy" on your skin, but I suggest you suffer through it for about two weeks when your skin moisture normalizes, your sebaceous glands will reduce oil production. Make sure you have good gut health, I don't know if you have taken antibiotics but if you have replenish with a good probiotic.

You're still young, and these are the growing pains which suck. What sucks even more is all these gasoline-like acne treatments that never work.

Also you can try an elimination diet and get rid of all foods that may have an allergy, nuts, eggs, dairy, nightshades, gluten, lectin. You "may" have an underlying allergy. I been reading a few paleo books. Read this one its cheap on amazon it's called "The Autoimmune Paleo Diet" by Anne Angelone

So try the Autoimmune diet for a few weeks and then you can reintroduce each food group after a month or so, and maybe give it a week or so between the addition of each new food group. You never know a slight allergy could be making things worse! Heck I would even try autoimmune paelo + low carb. But never do low fat/cholesterol (young developing brains need these to develop properly) and be sure your meats/chicken/egg stuff get grass fed, pastured eggs.

Goodluck!

Answer by lp for Non diet related acne?

2012-09-09T05:33:12Z

I would honestly suggest that you look into the dietary stuff but don't count on it. I deluded myself into thinking that I could, stopped taking topicals, and believed I was "curing" myself holistically by doing Paleo and avoiding a lot of foods for about 3 months in spite of all of the evidence--my acne came back, bad and I live in shame of it every day. Considering the psychological distress of having acne, if I could do over that choice, I would just stay on the meds. Its for you to weigh the pros and cons, but honestly, if you have health insurance, it may be a lot cheaper and less stressful to do that then to do all this dietary tweaking. This is obviously not a position I expect to be popular w/ many folks on this forum--but most of them don't have acne like I have and few can probably understand the degree to which my skin condition impacts my ability to enjoy life.

That said, I would suggest avoiding antibiotics or Accutane if possible. And if you don't want to take stuff that is too synthetic, I would suggest Azelaic acid (Azelex or Financea). Once my actual breakouts are under control again, I plan to go off the benzoyl peroxide, which is effective if you cleans and moisturize properly and give it a few months, but not too good for the skin in the long term, and I will probably try to be off of my retinoid at 9 months. Then, and only once I am clear, I'll try to rebuild my gut bacteria, etc., and see if I can wean myself off of the medication.

I've done a lot of "research" on acne and diet via pubmed, am familiar w/ various theories of holistic medicine and have read hundreds of anecdotes by people that claim to have been cured via this or that, but the clinical evidence just isn't compelling that if you have the tendency to develop severe acne, as I do, you can just tweak your diet to fix it.

Answer by BoneBrothFast for Non diet related acne?

2012-09-09T06:16:00Z

Die off explains everything.

Things get worse before they get better. Unfortunately, that's how our body works.