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Acne
I have been suffering from acne for a long time, but it has a strange shape, like a tumor. It was removed and examined, and a doctor told me not to tamper with the lymph nodes so as not to increase and advised me to take Roaccutane, but I refused. I have cleansed my body of all toxins with several types of liver and colon cleanses, and i suffer from hypothyroidism and sialic. After years of treatment, my acne is lighter, but it is still there, but smaller, with sebaceous glands around the mouth. Is there a protocol I should pay attention to? What do you recommend? -
14 Replies
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have you seen this acne handout in Symptom Dictionary to help you rule out the possible root causes?
Here’s the summary of the possible root causes and additional comments/questions for you to consider:
1. Diet high in refined carbohydrate; majority of acne is initiated by poor diet and/or hormonal imbalance
->Here’s a fillable 3-day food journal you can fill in and upload for us to take a look at.
2. Increased androgens (DHEA, DHT or testosterone) and decreased estrogen or progesterone
->Have you ever measured your hormone levels? These can be done in blood, but I always like to start off with the DUTCH Plus to see how your body is breaking down hormones it makes. It’s a comprehensive dry urine test that looks at all sex hormones, including cortisol, melatonin, and some organic acid markers.
3. Excess iron in the diet. Iron opposes zinc and zinc insufficiency is common with acne
->Do you know what your levels are? Have you measured zinc and copper levels before?
4. Nutrient insufficiencies: vitamin A, E, zinc and magnesium
->If you haven’t measured these markers before, it would be a good idea to make sure they’re optimal, especially zinc and vitamin A which are also needed for thyroid conversion.
5. Stress (encourages sebaceous glands to create more oil)
->Another reason to get the DUTCH Plus, which measures adrenal health by looking at cortisol metabolism and the cortisol rhythm throughout the day.
6. Food sensitivities (especially dairy and gluten)
->This can also be measured but the best test is an elimination diet. Do you consume dairy and gluten? Have you tried an elimination before for a minimum of 30 days followed by a proper reintroduction? If you’re curious to try, here’s a handout that explains it.
7. Toxic burden affecting detox pathways (i.e. mold & mycotoxins, agrichemicals, heavy metals)->You said you’ve done many cleanses before which is great. Have you ever investigated mold, heavy metals? Here’s a mold symptom questionnaire you can fill in. Let me know how you score if you do.
8. Dysbiosis (imbalance in gut microbiome)
->Do you have any GI symptoms like gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, acid reflux, etc?
Let me know.
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Hey ,
There are definitely things you can do when you are suffering from acne! It is however important to be sure that it is acne. There are four components that together form acne:
1. Increased oil production – This can happen when androgens (like a derivative from testosterone called DHT or dihydrotestosterone) are increased. Causes for this can be insulin resistance (click here and here to see a list of symptoms that might be indicative of insulin resistance).One of the symptoms of PCOS (Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome) is also acne, again caused by increased androgens often exaggerated by insulin resistance. Signs & symptoms of PCOS are: irregular or absent ovulation, increased facial hair growth, male pattern balding, and acne.
Zinc can help decrease DHT and a supplement could help you if you aren’t getting enough zinc.
2. Increased skin cell stickiness – This can cause pores to be blocked, trapping the oil. A lack of vitamin A could be a cause. If you eat a lot of orange vegetables (carrots, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, etc) and your hands and skin turn orange, you might not be able to process beta-carotene efficiently to the biologically available vitamin A due to genetic reasons.Getting your vitamin A from animal food sources in this case is something that might help you. Great animal sources are for example liver (you can find a great recipe right here and here if you don’t like liver that much). If you like to work with supplements, make sure the ingredient list says ‘retinyl palmitate’. This form of vitamin A doesn’t use the enzyme that converts beta-carotene to vitamin A and bypasses that problem.
3. Bacterial overgrowth – The microbiome on the skin can feed off the oil and dead cells trapped in the pores. Tea tree oil can help since it has antibacterial properties. Make sure you start with a diluted version since high concentrations might irritate the skin in some people.
4. Inflammation – Once the immune system starts fighting the bacterial overgrowth, the skin gets inflamed. This is causing red skin you can see sometimes with acne. Supporting the immune system can help. Nutrients that support the immune system are vitamin D, vitamin A, zinc, vitamin B12 and folate. Omega 3s are great as well! They will help resolve inflammation. Usually, I recommend 2000-4000 mg of DHA+EPA with my clients when they experience inflammation.Having an anti-inflammatory lifestyle helps as well. Try to reduce sugar, refined foods, and cheap vegetable oils and focus on quality oils like Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Alcohol, unfortunately, is inflaming. Chronic stress as well. Try to avoid foods that your immune system sees as a threat like food sensitivities and food allergies. Focus on good quality sleep. Incorporate nuts and fish into your diet and try to eat foods rich in antioxidants like organic blueberries, strawberries, spinach, kale and cabbages.
Gut health can for sure play a big role in acne as well. Did you mean by sialic, sialic acid storage disease or celiac disease? Celiac disease can change nutrient absorption. Healing your gut is probably an important part of your healing journey as well.
Let us know if you would like some guidance for that as well!
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Thanks Bernadette and Daniel for your valuable advice.
I have benefited a lot from the available information and my idea of a healthy life and healthy habits has changed.
I have been using all the supplements they recommended for a month now and I have seen progress in my health.
I followed a diet and stayed away from cruciferous vegetables because I suffer from a lazy thyroid and I stay away from lactose and gluten.
I followed a system in which I stay away from anti-inflammatory because I am allergic to almost everything.I need help repairing my intestines.
I need a good antiallergic.
I need to know how to strengthen the skin barrier to be more healthy. -
what do you mean by you’re allergic to almost everything? What symptoms are you referring to?
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Sensitive to sunlight, swimming pool, dust, and if you try new cosmetics
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Ok so this is different to the acne symptom?
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Every month I do a facial, my facial pores have become larger than usual. Without a result, all the hormonal examinations were correct, and she advised me to take contraception because it works on the purity of the face.
I looked at the mold questions and this was the result: 11 probable mold or biotoxin sikness.
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are you currently taking oral birth control for your acne?
11 on the mold questionnaire probably warrants either testing your body and/or testing your home/office (wherever you spend most of your time) for mold given the many symptoms you’re sharing with us.
Please watch the entire section of videos on How to Test for Mold and let us know if you have any clarifying questions about pursuing testing. Mold is often an overlooked root cause and it’s VERY common in the UAE given the high humidity.
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I am not using any contraception at the moment. In my old house there was mold, but now there is no mold.
I just want to know what should I do to treat toxins in the body and restore the intestines. I used a coffee enema and it helped me a lot.
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moving out of your home is a good thing but if you were colonized while living there, you will bring that mold with you wherever you go. Hence why it’s important to know if you’re dealing with mycotoxins since your protocol will look different than someone who isn’t dealing with mycotoxin illness.
In my Mold & Mycotoxin Illness course, the final module tackles how to detox from mold. You can skip testing and jump straight into action, or you can test to know what your current levels are like. However, as I mention in the testing videos, when someone’s detox pathways are blocked, the result can come back “negative” in urine when in reality they have a very strong mold body burden.
A coffee enema is definitely a tool to help the body detoxify. There’s much more than can be done as well, which I share in that course.
You can take a look at how I build a customized protocol for clients to see what I usually include and reasons why.
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Hi dear,
After the coffee enema, almost all acne disappeared from the face. Does this mean that the colon needs treatment, or the liver needs to be cleaned, or what?
I got confused?Liver cleaning drugs I can never tolerate cause inflammation in the urine.
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There can definitely be a gut component to acne. It is hard to say what that component exactly is. Testing will provide deeper insights. As Bernadette mentioned, your gut can be colonised by mold when you have lived in a moldy environment. Mold can produce toxins, but mold can also alter the diversity and density of microbes in the microbiome. Mold can also impair the gut lining. As a consequence nutrient absorption might change.
If a coffee enema helps, this cleans the gut temporarily and the toxic burden might get lower. A coffee enema can also increase glutathione production, which is an important antioxidant that helps with detoxification. My best advice would be to make some time and dive into the Gut Health Masterclass which will help you to take steps in how to heal the gut. Mold & Mycotoxin Illness is a second course in B Better which can help you address mold issues. If you think mold is at play I recommend you start there.
To help you on your way I will provide you with a few tips. I also have made a selection of a few videos that I think are the bare minimum to watch:
• Make sure you aren’t vitamin D deficient. Vitamin D is necessary to keep the tight junctions (which you can consider as doors between cells in the lining of the gut) closed. This will make it harder for undigested foods or toxins to get in. Here is a handout that I love, that talks about vitamin D.
• Make sure you are having a bowel movement at least once per day. Anything less I personally consider as constipation and needs to be addressed before you start any detoxification protocol. Otherwise, you might reabsorb toxins which you are trying to detox. If you are experiencing constipation, this handout and this video will help you.
• Remove foods that feed unwanted microbes, like sugar, fast carbohydrate sources and processed foods. Avoid foods or things that you are allergic to or have food sensitivities to. Remove stress and improve sleep quality if you aren’t waking up refreshed. All these things influence your immune system. Binders can help bind to toxins when you believe they play a role. G.I. Detox from Biocidin Botanicals is a supplement that I often recommend to my clients because it has a combination of binders. It is important to take them on an empty stomach though. There needs to be at least one hour between your next meal when you have consumed them. This video provides you with other supplement ideas.
• Remove the microbes (mold, yeast, whatever might be at play) becomes part of the healing journey as well. The next videos will help you on how to do that, but for a more targeted strategy, testing first is important.• The Fight – Antimicrobial
• The Fight – Antifungal
• The Fight – Antiparasitic
• The Fight – Probiotics & Gut Immunity
• Make sure your immune system gets all the nutrients needed (Vitamin D, vitamin A, vitamin B12 and zinc). Bernadette already provided you with some tips. This handout she shared as well, but I have put it here just to be complete.
• Reinocculate the gut microbiome with probiotic foods or supplements.
• Repair the gut lining can help if there has been some damage. This video provides some ideas on how to repair the gut lining. If you like to know if some damage is present, I would recommend you test first.
• Rebalance your lifestyle where necessary to make sure reoccurrence won’t happen. Sleep, stress, diet and exercise all play an important role in rebalancing your life.
• If you like to learn more about how to set up a good healing strategy: watch The 5R protocol video.If you suspect mold is at play, I would recommend you to at least watch the full video section Detoxing from Mold in the Mold & Mycotoxin Illness course. The first video you can find here!
I hope this gives you a direction!
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I am grateful to you, you made everything short. I will start watching the video, but I need your advice on supplements.
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Hey ,
Usually, my advice is to heal the gut in different phases: remove, replace, reinoculate, repair and after this rebalance. This is also called the ‘5R protocol’.
Every stage has its own importance and comes with its own supplement advice. You can find the supplement recommendations in the video!
I kept the advice general since the advice. I can be more specific in my recommendations but only based on additional tests. For example, you could try to heal the gut, but healing the gut won’t remove mold or other unwanted microbes that might be damaging the gut.
The supplements for healing the gut are in the video mentioned under repair. When you believe this is the only thing you need, you can think about zinc carnosine, aloe vera, and miscellaneous herbs like slippery elm and marshmallow root. Thorne GI relief, Pure encapsulations DGL Plus are great supplement blends you can try. These are supplements without L-glutamine.
L-glutamine is also a great amino acid that can help heal the gut. You could use it, but Designs for Health has a great blend with L-glutamine called GI Revive.
L-glutamine is not for everyone though. When you notice that you feel more anxious with glutamine, I would consider leaving the L-glutamine out.
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