Acne — Again?!

I raised three kids and saw them through their childhood, pimply adolescence, and now adulthood. Acne, usually considered to be a teenage symptom, has reemerged in my practice with young adults through menopausal women. Men and women have come to see me very confused about their once-smooth face showing blackheads, whiteheads, and cystic lesions. Frequently, these are complaints that show no trend, rhyme, or reason. Once assumed that it was cyclically aligned with menses, or related to touching the face leaving dirt on the skin or overproduction of sebum. Lately, people are seeking more specific and thorough treatment. Acne cases are sometimes too mysterious to resolve with basic lifestyle changes, so a deeper investigation has to occur.

Adolescence is the most common but acne is occurring in droves being triggered by nutritional deficiencies, stressors, and traveling, as our immune system is not always copacetic with the bacteria and environment of foreign places.
Because most people are not aware of effective natural treatments, they seek the strongest pharmaceutical-strength remedy. These treatments, including antibiotics, can be detrimental to the body systems and often don’t resolve the acne.

Throughout the merry-go-round of symptom origination, I have discovered a few key surprising underlying causes and strategy’s to resolve acne. Using a variety of questionnaires, history and background intakes, and, Zyto technology, I found some of the main culprits: stress, hormone imbalances, congested liver, and parasites, and heat within the body. Sometimes nutritional deficiencies also promote lesions on the skin. The skin is the greatest detox organ of the body — the others being liver, lungs and GI tract. If one of these organs isn’t thriving, it will often show on the skin.

Depending on which of the four culprits, the treatments differ. However, there is one common cause that I always address when treating acne: the liver. The liver is considered the “filter of the body.” Its primary purpose is to eliminate toxins from the body and send them through the GI system to be excreted. A liver can become congested based on lifestyle and environment — stress, unhealthy foods, pharmaceutical medications, alcohol, tobacco, EMFs, and according to Ayurveda, even what we see. Everything has to be broken down, and if the liver and GI tract don’t do it, then it comes through our skin thus creating acne. It is necessary to clean the liver if we want the acne to clear. People with hetero-homozygous MTHFR gene don’t detoxify as easily, which may be another cause. Determining this gene variance is through saliva testing, which is easily performed.

Medical complaints can be viewed through many different lenses and philosophies. My numerous in-depths training gives insight and perspective on how to best treat my patients. In Ayurveda, acne is a disturbance of hi pitta dosha. Staying away from certain foods, ingesting cooling herbs to cool the excess heat that hi pitta dosha possesses is very important. Certain yoga practices include practicing in an effortless non-goal-oriented way. Twists are excellent for reducing pitta especially if they are held for longer times at 75% of your effort as are forward folds. In chiropractic, adjusting the spine at T9/T10 promotes liver health by vitalizing the neural pathway from the spine to the liver.

Through nutritional support, dietary advice, herbs, and lifestyle coaching, I address each client’s unique constitutions and needs. Everybody receives liver support. We have had great success in eliminating acne through these specific methods. The skin regenerates every three months, so committing to 3-6 months to see real change is important. Skin cells need this time to regenerate.

It has been so rewarding seeing these young adults and menopausal women with shining, smiling faces after many months of battling acne. Happy skin is a happy liver!