I had really bad acne as a teenager”
Symptom
When I was a teenager I was called pizza face, I felt awful all the time and found it very difficult to look at people in the face. I have had roacutane several times and it does work. However, I know it has a number of possible side effects one of which being depression. Whilst my skin is much better now when I do get spots I get very low and it definitely puts a cloud over my world. I also cannot bear anyone touching my face.
My diet is relatively good and I exercise regularly. I tend to drink at least 3 litres of water a day but I do drink a lot of tea and coffee.
Reflexology, homeopathy and kinesiology have all been suggested to me but I know nothing about them. Whilst I can cope with my skin now, I would like to look into the alternatives available so that should any of my children have the same problem I can help them without them going through the heartache that I did.
Possible Solutions
Acne is caused by hormonal changes at puberty which lead to an increase in the activity of the sebaceous glands. Acne can be aggravated by sweating, lack of sunlight, poor skin hygiene, cosmetics, oral contraceptives and sometimes even exercise.
Diet will affect your skin and therefore avoiding certain foods is always worth trying. With this in mind allergy testing and kinesiology are
good places to start. They will both help you to identify foods which your body can and cannot absorb properly and will help you find a diet that works for you. Try taking multivitamin and mineral supplements that are low in iodine, increase intake of vitamin E, A and zinc and eliminate processed foods.
Homeopathy works with you on the inside and whilst it is possible that initially it could make your skin worse, as with anything perseverance is worth doing and it will allow the toxins to come out. Silicea is helpful where there is scarring; ant tart for pus-filled pimples; sulfur for chronic acne with rough hard skin; hep sulf for large spots resembling boils.
A herbalist might recommend a facial steam with chickweed, elderflower and marigold for soothing the skin and drawing out the infection; echinacea, burdock root, cleavers or yellow dock can be sipped to cleanse the system; comfrey ointment can be massaged into old spots to reduce scarring.
In addition to this a cranial osteopath may be able to help some of the underlying reasons why your skin makes you feel so awful. The emotional scars of something like acne are far worse than the actual spots and this therapy could well help with dealing with this.
Therapies to try
- Homeopathy
- Kinesiology
- Reflexology
- Cranial Osteopath
- Herbalist