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Tretinoin toxicity?
Hi guys,
I’m 33 and saw a drastic change in my skin and my face aging so I started to take tretinoin .025% almost every other night, working my way up to every night. Lately, I’ve been having major insomnia that I’ve never in my life experienced, also mood changes, and some bizarre nausea that comes from nowhere. I didn’t think it was the topical cream, but after googling if it can cause flu-like symptoms I found a forum of all these people having horrible symptoms after starting retinoid A creams and tretinoin… is this possible? Or is this all in our head? There’s nothing in my life that’s I’ve changed other than this, I’d say. Is it going into my blood stream? A women said that something was wrong with her liver markers while taking it, then she came off the cream and things were fine again… is there an alternative cream for anti-aging/wrinkles that’s safer?
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1 Reply
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Hey ,
Like any medication, tretinoin can have side effects. The most described side effects of topical tretinoin are skin-related. That doesn’t mean the cream doesn’t have other side effects.
With oral use of tretinoin side effects like mood changes and GI symptoms can occur. These symptoms are rare, but they do happen.
However, I’d like to keep an open mind. Hormonal imbalances can also cause some changes in the skin. An example of such a skin change can be acne.
Sometimes acne is caused by imbalances in sex hormones. An overproduction of androgens can stimulate oil production of the sebaceous glands causing pores to clog. Dry skin can be caused by low androgens. Imbalances in sex hormones can influence mood as well.
These imbalances can be caused by blood sugar dysregulation, which can influence our sleep quality.
In earlier posts, you shared a blood test with us. It showed us evidence of lower levels of zinc and vitamin B6. Zinc is a nutrient that helps with sex hormone balance and vitamin B6 is a key nutrient that helps with producing neurotransmitters. A low vitamin B6 can contribute to changes in mood as well. Vitamin B6 is also necessary for the production of Glutathione (and melatonin!), which is an antioxidant particularly important for detoxification. If the need for glutathione goes up it could potentially deplete vitamin B6 further and influence mood and sleep as well.
Did you after this post try to address these issues?
Let me circle back to your question. It would be helpful to know:
• What kind of skin issues are you experiencing?
• Could you tell me what mood changes you are experiencing? Did you notice they are getting worse during your cycle?
• In previous posts, we also saw evidence of a slow thyroid. Are you experiencing low thyroid symptoms currently? Feeling cold, hair loss, thinning of the eyebrows, fatigue, other GI symptoms besides nausea like constipation, etc… (if you are unsure about the symptoms you can find a list here)
• What about your current diet? You’ve mentioned you are sensitive to gluten and lactose. Are there hidden sources you are consuming?
• How about your current IBS symptoms? Are you still experiencing them?I know it’s a lot of questions, but more information will help us give more targeted answers.
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