Cherry Angiomas (red Dots On Skin)

It was 2008 and I was in my mid-30s. I started to notice some disturbing skin changes that indicated premature aging. One of these was the appearance of tiny red dots on my skin.

I checked with two dermatologists who were not concerned at all. These red dots were cherry angiomas. I was told they are signs of aging. I did not like this, did not like the little dots. They seemed to be appearing on my upper arms, breasts, upper legs, tummy. "Fatty" areas. They were tiny but for one on my breast that was bigger.

I had seen these cherry angiomas on older people, and for me to be developing them along with what seemed to be other signs of premature aging in my 30s was hard to take. I didn't know what could be done for them apart from having a derm remove them, so I tried to ignore them.

Well, the past week or so I am having a harder time finding any of them.

The ones I see are lighter and smaller, like they are fading. I was in denial about that, but then tonight in my epsom salt/baking soda bath, I checked the larger one on my breast, and it's smaller...lighter too - like it's not as thick. I examined it as close as I could and saw it is sort of breaking up around the border.

I'm trying not to get too excited about this, but I can't help but feel happy about it. Overall I've noticed nicer, more even skin on my body. I attributed it to my 5 to 20 min. of sun I try to get at least a few times per week, giving me a sort of light glow, but maybe there is something else to this.

Only recently did I even learn cherry angiomas are hormone (estrogen) related. Once again, estrogen dominance. And I didn't even acccept that I had estrogen dominance until fairly recently when I looked back over symptoms from my mid to late 30s.

So many things come back to estrogen, estrogen, estrogen (or maybe the ultimate root is thyroid issues). Symptoms I would NEVER have connected to my other more common symptoms, or connected to estrogen at all, are turning out to be just that - all connected to estrogen. Wow. If only I had known all this a lot sooner.

I'm pretty much a skeptic and though I like to be positive and hopeful, I don't like to get too excited over most internet ideas anymore, since for many many years I've tried everything for my different symptoms and nothing has helped at least long term. Sometimes it felt like running around trying to put out little fires only to have another one pop up (treating symptoms which either only worked temporarily or seemed to cause other issues down the line, such as taking bcp for example). I'm glad I found Ray Peat's info which seems to get at the base cause for so many things, and will keep on hopefully to see what more it's going to do for me long term.

 

Same experience here: started getting a lot of cherry angiomas forming a few years ago. Since Peat-ing, they've (fingers crossed) stopped forming.

Because I had learned a bit about angiogenesis and its connections to cancer, they did nudge me to question my health practices :)

 

I'm so glad to read I'm not the only one with this experience, Dan. And yeah, it's kinda scary how some of these symptoms seem innocent enough, but many of them link together to paint a picture of poor health or impending poor health.

How long ago did you start Peating?

I've done some reading in the last couple hours of anecdotal evidence on what makes these things go away. Some say they've had success with magnesium oil (which I've just started using in the last 11 days; others have said amino acids helped (I also upped my gelatin and therefore amino acid intake in the last 11 days). I didn't know before today that those could possibly help. Or it could be the different anti-estrogenic things we do or avoid in the Peat woe that are working together to regulate hormones.

 

http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/ro ... ging.shtml

 

More than a year now, and no new angiomas. Which is telling, because I think I previously developed around 8 over the course of a year.

 

So you haven't stopped getting them or seen any fading?

 

Peata, how's the cherry angiomas now? I think I halted progression after starting Peating last year ago, but mine are probably still there. I remember looking into them and don't recall coming across anything relating it to estrogen. A lot of those alt health practitioners said it was from excess bromide from like fortified bread, stuff in furniture, etc that our livers couldn't handle. I remember when I tried taking high dose iodine that I got more of them. The rationale was the iodine was "saturating" and displacing bromide (and maybe chloride and flouride). Since the liver couldn't detox it, then it would force them into storage as these angiomas.

My regular docs had also said they were nothing to be concerned about....

 

It looks like there really isn't much out there on them as far as studies. I could very easily see estrogen at play though.

I did find these articles.
This is the main paper, which most bromide conclusions are set from. Kinda interesting. It's essentially a well written anecdote:
http://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/51587

Funny article of the sort I used to read and believe. Pretty much sums what I said and more (with recommendations!): h
ttp://amanonmedicine.com/cherry-angioma ... ne-iodine/

 

I noticed that two of my most-recent angiomas seem to be shrinking. I wonder if there's a window of opportunity for reversing the angiogenesis, though I'm not sure what might've helped.

Just out of curiosity, I've been applying Haidut's MelaNon to a different angioma. I haven't noticed anything yet, but I'll keep applying it for a while. Although maybe Estroban would be a better candidate.

 

Yeah, estroban sounds appropriate. Good idea about Melanon. I'll do the same. I think Haidut said in the Melanon thread that the 2 could be used synergistically

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9871882
"Our evaluation found no evidence of hematologic, liver, lung, or renal toxicity, but elevations in the erythrocyte sedimentation rate and blood pressure of each subject were found. Workplace air sampling found no detectable 2-BE, but traces (0.1-0.2 ppm) of formaldehyde were identified. Irritant symptoms abated after the group was moved to a room with better ventilation, and the mild hypertension gradually cleared, but new cherry angiomas have continued to appear 5 years after the acute exposure, as the initial ones persisted. These angiomas occur in healthy persons as they age but in this instance appear to have resulted from a single overexposure to 2-BE."

Looks like the procedure they use for varicose veins (injecting saline solution) works on C.A.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25099289

C.A. and prolactin. This is probably our estrogen relation:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23370299
"...Alterations in serum levels of prolactin and chemokines in SM-exposed victims and the impact on angiogenesis are indications of the role in SM-induced cherry angioma. As part of the SICS, this study seeks to evaluate the possible association of prolactin and chemokines in the emergence of SM-induced cherry angioma...."

 

Progression halted, and I think some disappeared but not all. I am using Melanon on the biggest one I have, but not sure it's helping. It's been one month.

 

Hello to everyone! How are things now with your angiomas? Almsot two years past - are they dissapeared or not?
I have quite a lot of them and i don't like it at all... I only started Peat way of eating a few weeks ago and i wonder if this will help with angiomas.

 

I had a ton of them and all but one on my ribs disappeared. In my case, estrogen/prolactin seemed to correlate pretty well with the appearance and lowering prolactin led to most of them disappearing - pretty much what Peat told me when I asked him about these angiomas a few years ago.

 

Impressive! And what did you do to lower it? What do you think was the most important factor?

 

I don't know that there was a single factor as I did so many things including taking some cypro for a month to fix gut issues. Bottom line is that as my prolactin went down the angiomas disappeared. There are many things that lower prolactin, as we have discussed on the forum and Peat wrote about.

 

O'k , thank you. I 've searched forum but hadn't found direct topic "How to lower prolactin" But i don't give up :) This information is maybe dilueted in different topics.

I've found this at Ray Peat's site about rosacea as i understand it is usefull for angiomas too:

"Carbon dioxide, glycine, GABA, saturated fatty acids (for example, Nanji, et al., 1997), vitamin K, coenzyme Q10, niacinamide, magnesium, red light, thyroid hormone, progesterone, testosterone, and pregnenolone are factors that can be increased to protect against inappropriate cellular excitation".

"All of the nutritional factors that participate in mitochondrial respiration contribute to maintaining a balance between excessive excitation and protective inhibition. Riboflavin, coenzyme Q10, vitamin K, niacinamide, thiamine, and selenium are the nutrients that most directly relate to mitochondrial energy production".

"The sun-damaged areas in rosacea can be directly provided with some of the protective factors by applying them topically. In the same way that topical lactate can cause vasodilation and disturbed energy metabolism (Rendl, et al., 2001), topical niacinamide, progesterone, vitamin K, and coenzyme Q10 can improve the metabolism and function of the local tissues. Riboflavin can probably be useful when applied topically, but because of its extreme sensitivity to light, it should usually be used only internally, unless the treated skin is covered to prevent exposure to light. Topically applied caffeine, even after sun exposure, can reduce local tissue damage (Koo, et al., 2007). Aspirin and saturated fats can also be protective when applied topically".(c) Ray Peat

 

Calcium, progesterone, vitamin D, lower doses DHEA, aspirin, thyroid, vitamin E, etc can all lower prolactin.