18-12-2018, 09:52 PM
After lots and lots of searching about the causes of hormonal acne, I found an article that made a lot of sense to me and I used this really pretty simple formula to start reversing my hormonal breakouts. I'm not gonna say that my skin is 100% clear but it's much much better. The article pretty claims that hormonal acne is caused by
1. high ratio of estrogen: progesterone (i.e. too much estrogen with not enough progesterone to balance it out)
2. combined with high DHT
What happened to me was that I usually have very clear skin but I got one of the worst breakouts of my life all of the sudden. I'm talking 12 pimples (and some of them cysts!) popping up in a couple of days from a base of basically clear skin. And breaking out on my back as well. This was during the follicular phase so I wasn't taking using any progesterone cream but was taking quite a bit of Shatavari (~1500mg) and a little bit (>100mg) of PM. So it seems like I had a high Estrogen: Progesterone ratio just like the article claimed.
So I starting using some progesterone cream, even though it wasn't my luteal phase yet and I also stopped the PM and doubled the amount of saw palmetto that I was taking (for anti- DHT effect from 340 to 680mg) and the new pimples stopped coming almost immediately. This was about 3 weeks ago and my skin has remained relatively calm. The PM is just too much estrogen for me without taking progesterone every day, I think. And since I want to cycle the progesterone, I just don't think my body can handle that as estrogen as what PM has. I have kept the amount of saw palmetto that I'm taking high, and so far I haven't had another terrible break out like this even though I'm on my follicular phase again and so taking quite a lot of Shatavari and no progesterone.
This is really important information I think because for all the ladies out there saying that they are having bad acne from NBE, I think this means you already have enough estrogen and possibly a bit high DHT as well. Don't add in any more E without some P and think about more anti-DHT. Hope this is helpful to some!
1. high ratio of estrogen: progesterone (i.e. too much estrogen with not enough progesterone to balance it out)
2. combined with high DHT
What happened to me was that I usually have very clear skin but I got one of the worst breakouts of my life all of the sudden. I'm talking 12 pimples (and some of them cysts!) popping up in a couple of days from a base of basically clear skin. And breaking out on my back as well. This was during the follicular phase so I wasn't taking using any progesterone cream but was taking quite a bit of Shatavari (~1500mg) and a little bit (>100mg) of PM. So it seems like I had a high Estrogen: Progesterone ratio just like the article claimed.
So I starting using some progesterone cream, even though it wasn't my luteal phase yet and I also stopped the PM and doubled the amount of saw palmetto that I was taking (for anti- DHT effect from 340 to 680mg) and the new pimples stopped coming almost immediately. This was about 3 weeks ago and my skin has remained relatively calm. The PM is just too much estrogen for me without taking progesterone every day, I think. And since I want to cycle the progesterone, I just don't think my body can handle that as estrogen as what PM has. I have kept the amount of saw palmetto that I'm taking high, and so far I haven't had another terrible break out like this even though I'm on my follicular phase again and so taking quite a lot of Shatavari and no progesterone.
This is really important information I think because for all the ladies out there saying that they are having bad acne from NBE, I think this means you already have enough estrogen and possibly a bit high DHT as well. Don't add in any more E without some P and think about more anti-DHT. Hope this is helpful to some!