Acne : Things that seem to be completely clearing mine up...

DKayJoe · May 15, 2015

Hi all, just a quick post for any fellow Acne sufferers out there.

First off I'm a 25 year old male, I've had pretty bad acne on my back ever since I was 16 and problems on my face and neck developed roughly when I turned 20. I've been experimenting with peat-esque things lately and recently (the past week or so) my acne seems to slowly but surely be completely clearing up so I thought I'd stick something here incase any fellow sufferers want an extra perspective.

Firstly diet wise is pretty simple at the moment, 2.27 litres of salted whole milk daily and about a litre of semi-skimmed or 2 litres of fully skimmed a day with 2 litres of not from concentrate orange juice. Then occasional liver and oysters 2-3 times a week. Also a carrot salad with coconut oil, vinegar and salt every morning before I go to bed (I work night shifts). I average around 2500 - 3000 kcals a day, problem slightly under requirement as my job can be fairly active at times.

Supplement wise : 1000 IU of Vitamin E daily (Solgar)
2000mcg K1,
2000mcg k2 M-4
400mcg k2 M-7 (This is two life extension super k softgells)
300mg Chealted Magnesium (Solgar)
10,000 IU Vitamin D3 (Swanson)
B-Complex Vitamin (Solgar formula)

Done the diet stuff for a few months which made a slight improvement, as well as the vitamin D and E but it seems that when I added the K, Magnesium, and B-Complex things just went into overdrive, most of my acne on both the back and face has cleared up within days as well as my skin looking clearer and generally more healthy. I still have tiny little spots popping up on my forehead and back now and again but with any luck most of these will also dissipate.
There is a slight downside however, I have been slowly but surely suffering from MPB for a few years and although it's far from severe yet this seems to have caused some shedding, although personally I don't really care about this.

Anyways from reading through various threads on this forum I know there are a few others out there who deal with Acne so just though I'd share my piece on what seems to be working for it. Apologies if this is more of a testimonials thing but I was planning on doing a very comprehensive one somewhere down the line when I'm confident I've found everything that works best for me.

All the best, Joe.

frankfranks · May 15, 2015

I wasted so much time (years) messing around with diet, supplements, drugs, and various topicals before I figured out my skin problems were driven by demodex mites. I got some veterinary grade permethrin and made a water based solution (~20ml per liter of water), and then about fifteen days of three times a day application cleared me up. I just rubbed the stuff on by hand while wet in the shower. It was dramatic. It also cured my dandruff. Warning: it has the effect of breaking you out very, very badly for a few days as the mites die off. But then you heal up and its over.

If anyone has had skin problems for a long time I would suggest simply trying topical permethrin for a few days; I think it'll be obvious if it's doing anything. I did it as an experiment with no expectations, but on day one it was very obviously working. Within a minute or two of the first time I applied the stuff I could rub my skin and wipe away very tiny dark grey grains coming out of the pores. They felt hard, almost like grains of sand, and were definitely not sebum/keratin/skin plugs.

Like I said, I think two days of 3X daily permethrin application will prove whether or not you have a demodex problem. If you do, then it might be possible to convince a dermatologist to treat you appropriately, i.e. not simply bombard you with antibiotics and retinol related stuff. Ivermectin pills alongside for-real medical grade topical permethrin sounds like a good idea. Tea tree oil and sulfur are other over-the-counter topicals worth trying if self administering insecticide scares you. My ghetto permethrin solution worked well though, so I just stuck with it. I did also use tea tree oil once a day, but I don't know that it was necessary in my case.

I have no idea what fraction of acne cases are actually related to mites. Mine definitely was. Diet had always been totally irrelevant to my skin condition. Antibiotics and the normal bacteria targeting topicals did not really do much.

Some success with Tea Tree Oil (TTO) is what tipped me off that my problem was probably mites. Benzoyl Peroxide did pretty much nothing but TTO definitely triggered a huge reaction. TTO seems like a real winner for acne or other skin problems, mites or otherwise. It'll kill biofilms/bacteria, fungus, as well as parasites like mites. Why screw around with weaker stuff? Most of the research you'll see, which says it works OK, tests a 5% solution, which is dumb. 50% TTO in rubbing alcohol is the way to go. Apply and leave on over night. It's well tolerated by most people.

tara · May 15, 2015

Hi frankfranks.
Congrats on solving your problem.

Apparently 100% of people studied so far have demodex mites, often more than one kind, living in their pores.
Not saying those mites weren't causing you trouble - I don't know. Just saying that for most people they don't cause acne. So finding grey grainy stuff coming out of pores when you attack them with strong chemicals doesn't prove they were the problem.

frankfranks · May 15, 2015

tara said:
Hi frankfranks.
Congrats on solving your problem.

Apparently 100% of people studied so far have demodex mites, often more than one kind, living in their pores.
Not saying those mites weren't causing you trouble - I don't know. Just saying that for most people they don't cause acne. So finding grey grainy stuff coming out of pores when you attack them with strong chemicals doesn't prove they were the problem.

Hair samples and biopsies indicate about 10% of people have detectable levels of mites, nowhere near 100%.

The fraction of those ~10% for whom the mites cause no problems is uncertain. The role of the immune system in controlling the mite population is not understood. But the basic medical fact of mite driven skin inflammation of various sorts is not even remotely controversial. Proven treatments targeting mites are common.

tara · May 15, 2015

frankfranks said:
tara said:

Hi frankfranks.
Congrats on solving your problem.

Apparently 100% of people studied so far have demodex mites, often more than one kind, living in their pores.
Not saying those mites weren't causing you trouble - I don't know. Just saying that for most people they don't cause acne. So finding grey grainy stuff coming out of pores when you attack them with strong chemicals doesn't prove they were the problem.

Click to expand...

Hair samples and biopsies indicate about 10% of people have detectable levels of mites, nowhere near 100%.

The fraction of those ~10% for whom the mites cause no problems is uncertain. The role of the immune system in controlling the mite population is not understood. But the basic medical fact of mite driven skin inflammation of various sorts is not even remotely controversial. Proven treatments targeting mites are common.

Coincidentally, just before reading your post, I was listening to a talk by someone studying these mites in a laboratory. She said that more recent methods of detecting that someone has them involve DNA detection, which suggest much greater prevalence than was previously known from sampling and looking for them under a microscope. (They can live on any part of the skin except palms and soles, and on different places from person to person, so sufficient sampling to exclude them would presumably be difficult). I thought she said that 100% of the people sampled had them, but maybe that was just her sample, rather than meta-study data.

She also said it would be difficult to get rid of them altogether, though you could reduce numbers, and that not enough was known about them to be sure it would be helpful to get rid of them for most people - they may be doing something useful that we are not yet aware of.

But there seems to be some agreement that they can occasionally get out of hand when the immune system is underperforming, and cause trouble, including possibly acne.

Amazoniac · May 15, 2015

It's for most people a combination of dysregulation between skin cell production and shed off, dysregulated sebaceous glands leading to a prone environment for microbes to thrive (clogging creates an anaerobic environment), leading to an inflammation response.
So, all aspects that affect those steps might play a role, and can be tracked as possible culprits.

seano · Nov 27, 2015

@DKayJoe - How has your acne been since then. And any changes to your diet or supplement protocol?

DKayJoe said:
post 80977
Firstly diet wise is pretty simple at the moment, 2.27 litres of salted whole milk daily and about a litre of semi-skimmed or 2 litres of fully skimmed a day with 2 litres of not from concentrate orange juice. Then occasional liver and oysters 2-3 times a week. Also a carrot salad with coconut oil, vinegar and salt every morning before I go to bed (I work night shifts). I average around 2500 - 3000 kcals a day, problem slightly under requirement as my job can be fairly active at times.

Supplement wise : 1000 IU of Vitamin E daily (Solgar)
2000mcg K1,
2000mcg k2 M-4
400mcg k2 M-7 (This is two life extension super k softgells)
300mg Chealted Magnesium (Solgar)
10,000 IU Vitamin D3 (Swanson)
B-Complex Vitamin (Solgar formula)

tobieagle · Nov 27, 2015

frankfranks said:
I wasted so much time (years) messing around with diet, supplements, drugs, and various topicals before I figured out my skin problems were driven by demodex mites. I got some veterinary grade permethrin and made a water based solution (~20ml per liter of water), and then about fifteen days of three times a day application cleared me up. I just rubbed the stuff on by hand while wet in the shower. It was dramatic. It also cured my dandruff. Warning: it has the effect of breaking you out very, very badly for a few days as the mites die off. But then you heal up and its over.

If anyone has had skin problems for a long time I would suggest simply trying topical permethrin for a few days; I think it'll be obvious if it's doing anything. I did it as an experiment with no expectations, but on day one it was very obviously working. Within a minute or two of the first time I applied the stuff I could rub my skin and wipe away very tiny dark grey grains coming out of the pores. They felt hard, almost like grains of sand, and were definitely not sebum/keratin/skin plugs.

Like I said, I think two days of 3X daily permethrin application will prove whether or not you have a demodex problem. If you do, then it might be possible to convince a dermatologist to treat you appropriately, i.e. not simply bombard you with antibiotics and retinol related stuff. Ivermectin pills alongside for-real medical grade topical permethrin sounds like a good idea. Tea tree oil and sulfur are other over-the-counter topicals worth trying if self administering insecticide scares you. My ghetto permethrin solution worked well though, so I just stuck with it. I did also use tea tree oil once a day, but I don't know that it was necessary in my case.

I have no idea what fraction of acne cases are actually related to mites. Mine definitely was. Diet had always been totally irrelevant to my skin condition. Antibiotics and the normal bacteria targeting topicals did not really do much.

Some success with Tea Tree Oil (TTO) is what tipped me off that my problem was probably mites. Benzoyl Peroxide did pretty much nothing but TTO definitely triggered a huge reaction. TTO seems like a real winner for acne or other skin problems, mites or otherwise. It'll kill biofilms/bacteria, fungus, as well as parasites like mites. Why screw around with weaker stuff? Most of the research you'll see, which says it works OK, tests a 5% solution, which is dumb. 50% TTO in rubbing alcohol is the way to go. Apply and leave on over night. It's well tolerated by most people.

Where did you acquire Permethrin?

Nicholas · Nov 27, 2015

frankfranks said:
post 80989 I could rub my skin and wipe away very tiny dark grey grains coming out of the pores.

horror

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Acne : Things that seem to be completely clearing mine up...

DKayJoe

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frankfranks

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tara

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frankfranks

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tara

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Amazoniac

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seano

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tobieagle

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Nicholas

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