Meet Kira
I love sharing stories like this one because it goes to show that not all acne is hormonally driven, and it is so important to address each individual in order to understand their unique drivers.
I have treated many patients like Kira, who are actually on the Pill, but are still suffering with acne.
Kira’s acne came along with puberty, and it was not long after menarche (the first period) that she was prescribed the Pill (along with antibiotics) to help her skin, which evidently didn’t really work. Here’s a blog I wrote about why this can happen.
She came to me scratching her head as to why she still had acne, because she’d already done everything the doctors and dermatologists had advised including:
The Pill
Antibiotics (which actually made her skin worse)
Skin therapy
Recommended skincare products
She had a clean diet, exercised regularly, had great stress management techniques…
The main thing that caused her stress and anxiety was her skin!
After gathering a lot of information from Kira in our initial consultation, I had two very interesting insights about her skin:
Her skin was better with the warmth (whereas usually any kind of bacterial infection worsens in warm weather)
Her skin was worse for antibiotic use (whereas usually bacterial infections are temporarily assisted by antibiotics)
Considering that she’d been on the Pill for so long, and it wasn’t in her plan to come off it, it was pretty safe to assume that her acne wasn’t being majorly driven by hormones… because the Pill completely shuts down hormone function, so it should be a “problem temporarily paused” situation for hormonal acne.
My key area of interest for her treatment was actually her gut function, and her body-type.
As far as body-type goes…
She is a tall and naturally lean woman, with a sensitivity to the cold and a tendency to stress and anxiety aggravating her skin. This is a body-type that we refer to as Ectomorphic - and it is this body-type that dominantly develops the ectodermic tissue in the womb (which is the tissue that forms the skin and the nervous system). Constitutionally, this body-type can have problems with their skin and gut, because a lot of their energy is directed towards their nervous system. They do not have a lot of fat tissue, so essentially anything cold can be quite a stress to their body.
And, as far as gut function goes…
We know that the Pill impacts the microbiome (the little world of bacteria that keep us healthy) of the gut, which in turn disrupts the microbiome of the skin, making one more prone to acne infections.
Looking at the gut as being the main driver, this would also explain why antibiotics actually worsened her skin, because obviously antibiotics cause quite a lot of damage to the microbiome as well.
I referred Kira to have general bloodwork done, as I was expecting her nutrient status to be quite poor due to what I suspected to be compromised gut function.
I also investigated her immune function, as Kira’s acne was a lot worse on her cheeks, which can reflect poor lymphatic/immune function.
Initial pathology revealed:
low zinc status (which is pretty normal to find where there is infection)
active infection (which turned out to be Glandular Fever!)
We focused treatment on these important areas of The Clear Skin Formula™:
Supporting immune function (which was very focused on anti-viral support to begin with!)
Encouraging lymphatic function (which in itself also supports immunity)
Correcting the microbiome
Focusing on lifestyle components to support her body-type (like staying warm and eating warm foods regularly)
Kira was a dream to work with, and our treatment wasn’t very long, because her lifestyle and diet were already so fantastic.
After one month, Kira saw improvements in her skin, which continued to get better during our treatment, which lasted a total of three months.
Improvements have maintained for Kira, over a year on.
A beautiful side note is that Kira doesn’t wear make up… so both these before and after shots are make up free, which is common goal of many of our patients.
Remember…
You don’t have acne because you aren’t using that-one-skincare-product-that-claims-it-heals-everything.
You don’t have acne because of a lack of antibiotics or hormone replacement therapy.
You have acne because of very individual drivers.
And, it is in your uniqueness that you will find your answers.
Love, Emily
