I was browsing through the Ask Fran thread in the forum today and came accross this question –
“I am just a little lost with something!!! I just don’t no how to work out if I have hormonal acne or not??”
A year ago if you asked me this question I would have given you a completely different answer. But what I’ve since learned from researching, from talking to people and from my own personal experiences, have all lead to a slightly different answer.
You see, yes – acne is often induced, caused or aggravated by hormones. However (and this is the important bit), out of whack hormones are usually induced by something else. So in actual fact, the root cause of your acne is not hormonal, it’s something that’s making your hormones out of whack.
I have a very recent personal story that explains this perfectly, and it may be a story that’s a little squimish for boys so I apologize in advance!
My last cycle was two weeks late, which doesn’t sound like a big deal but to me it was because it meant I had an intense prolonged bout of premenstural tension (PMT), which included irritability, depression, insomnia, anxiety and an acne breakout among other things. This late cycle or “delayed ovulation” is caused by either stress or a significant change in diet (such as detoxing or losing a lot of weight quickly), and can give women intense drawn out PMT.
Now my whole point of this story is that yes, my crazy PMT hormones did cause an acne breakout, but this delayed ovulation did not come out of nowhere. It’s likely that excess stress in my life OR the series of detoxing and colonics I had were the actual cause of the hormonal imblance. Therefore, you could say that the root cause of my acne breakout was either stress, intense detoxing or a combination of both.
I personally don’t feel that you can ever really blame hormones solely on your acne. This is because out of balance hormones are usually caused by something else. This could be stress, diet, puberty, pregnancy, going on or off the birth control pill, breast feeding or menopause. Hormone imbalances can even be induced by eating toxic foods, especially animal products which can be high in hormone residues.
So when you’re trying to figure out the root cause of your acne, go one level deeper and look at possibly why you think your hormones are contributing to your condition (and let’s face it, hormones are often to blame).
I’ve known for many years now that when I’m happy, stress free, eating well and exercising, my premenstrual symptoms are practically non existent. That right there just tells you how holistically you lifestyle choices and general health and wellbeing can so easily contribute to the delicate balance of your hormones.
Having said all that, it’s more likely for women to experience imbalanced hormones because we have so much more reason to (after pubery). Adult men for example can still commonly experience hormone instability from stress and diet, but for us girls we have the monthly hormonal changes plus the whole pregnancy and menopause thing as well.
So I guess in conclusion, the best thing that you can do for your acne problem when considering a hormone imbalance, is to live as healthy a lifestyle as you possibly can. This means practicing regular relaxation, eating well, exercising and if need be, taking supplements.
22 responses ↓
Fran, what do you think causes most teens’ hormones to get crazy the most? Puberty or diet?
I think teens could stablilize their hormones with good diet.
I think I’m going to be paying more attention to my hormones from now on though!
Kevin, definitely puberty. But these hormones can be helped immensely by a low GI diet.
Fran, I agree 110% with you! I previously was one of those people that ALWAYS blamed my monthly breakouts on PMS/PMT, but then I went to a naturopath (after following your highly recommended online course and diet) for allergy testing.
What do you know, wheat and dairy (along with several other foods) popped up as food sensitives, just like you talk about in the course! Plus I went off my high-estrogen birth control, which alleviated pretty much all of my bad symptoms in addition to the occasional spots (including the worst cramps ever and acting like a crazy person, still feel sorry for my poor boyfriend LOL).
It’s the best feeling to finally be in balance after years of a rollercoaster ride with breakouts. If you ever need more feedback from people that have cured their acne (knock on wood of course), I’d be very happy to give you my two cents
PS – your new pic is gorgeous. what a pretty pretty redhead!
Fran,
Can you do a video with more info on b5. I have had cycstic hormonal acne for the last 7 years and i;m 25. I have done every treatment except accutane. I have been taking pantothenic acid for a week and my face has never looked better. I’m so confused….why has this worked so fast and so well??? What does this say about my skin and what the problem is? Also…taking 20 pills a day makes me anxious, because the results are so positive i dont want to stop. What do you think about this?
Thank you so much Fran.
Hey Fran one more thing….
I am so angry that my doctors (dermatologist and family doctor) never mentioned this b5 treatment before. All the suffering that acne has caused and in a week my skin is looking the best it has in 7 years….all because of you and youtube. Do you think they did not mention it because they want to push their perscriptions, because they think it is unsafe, or dont think it works? When i first found out about the high dosage of b5 i mentioned it to my family doctor and all she said was i would just pee ( sorry) all of the vitamins out because they are water soluable and i should save my money.
Hi Elizabeth, I’ve finished my B5 experiment so I’ll do a video about it soon!
Hi Fran, I just came back from a dermatologist visit crying
… frustrated with prescriptions, money, and acne!!! I recently came across your vlogs on youtube, and now your website. I just want to say that I really appreciate your study and research on the topics, especially now hormonal balances. I am 22 and stillllll have acne -yuck!
Hi Fran and everybody out there i really appreaciate you fran for the good outreach you are doing i have been following your mini course so attentively, and i have started at least cuttng some few things which are mentioned in the course, thanks so much but my question is when ever i woke up in the morning i check my face in th mirror i always find that they are no acne or rather new pimples face looks so nice it only shows old ones in the form of healing actually am using clinique and immediately it’s bout 8:00 AM i see new break outs and this really makes me pissed off i hate my self i really dont know what to do my fellow fox. the other thing i want to find out from you Fran is in one of the passages i think i came across something like Candida how does candida come and how it be treated? i have reached an extent of just washing my face with water ONLY, help me before i run mad.
Have a nice evening.
Hi Brenda,
This is usually because in the morning when you wake up your face is generally a little paler than usual ..the color starts to return to our face as we begin to move around and wake up.
My first advice to you is to- STOP looking at your skin in the mirror and thinking about it so much!! That’s the first thing, don’t give it so much attention. Don’t look at your skin first thing in the morning, do something else ..make a cup of tea, go and sit in the sun for a bit.
It’s also very, very important for you to LOVE yourself, so it’s essential that you change your mindset and stop thinking about hating yourself. Look in the mirror and see yourself through the eyes of somebody in your life that really loves you ..and see how different you look.
Oh wow, I am SO glad I found your blog! I’ve been wondering for so long why my face suddenly broke out and hasn’t cleared up.
My OB-GYN told me to start taking birth control indefinitely to help control chronic pelvic pain so, naturally, I didn’t get my usual visits.
I’m tearing up because I’ve been so obsessed over this, trying to figure out what was causing my skin to be so bad all of a sudden – and nothing I did seemed to work. I tried cutting out dairy and meat, exercising more, using different cleansers, toners, etc.
Now I’m certain I just need to stop listening to my OB-GYN!
I cannot tell you how freakin’ happy I am!! Thank you
What vitamins and herbs do you take to help acne?
HI Gary, currently I only take a multi-vitamin.
I believe you can get the healthy acne free skin back again. I am not sure how but will investigate.
The culprit for my acne is Diane 35 pill (evil pill errr). So I hope and have faith that I will get the skin that I want. However gaining acne on my chest and neck and back is a new thing too. So i hope this disapears and wondering is this considered hormonal too?
I just pray for healthy young clear skin
I hope everyone finds success in beating acne.
I need to add, I want my acne to clear up before i head back home to Brisbane, if it doesnt I think I will stay in Canada till it does.
Does B5 only work with adults? What are some good examples of a Low GI diet breakfast?
Fran i read on some health websites that vitamin a deficientcy is a primary cause of acne. they said thatb this was why escomos didnt get acne because they live on meat which has lots of vitamin a and also they said it fits because the way to clear really severe acne is accutane which is basically just ridiculously high doses of vtiamin a to reverse the time of deficiency. In fact they said that accutane is actually less potent than vitamin a and that the celebritys who like take 5mg of accutane a week are being conned as it would be safe to take that amount of vitamin a a week which would be more effective.
I just wanted to come back and comment again that oranges were the cause of what I thought was hormonal acne. As soon as I cut out the oranges, my face cleared up and has stayed that way unless I accidentally eat something with oranges in it. Hope that helps someone.
I just turned fifteen years old and this whole website is freaking me out. My doctor has me on antibiotics for an infected toenail but is planning to keep me on a lower dose of sulfa for a while to clear up my acne. She also gave me topical Retin-A. While your whole “change your diet, no sugar” plan sounds simple, come on! Do you really expect me and pretty much every other teen in the world to give up sugar? It’s not going to happen. Sorry, but no. We’ve grown up with sugar, we’re, for lack of a better word, addicted.
I’m a healthy person, I’m in cross country so I run every day for long distances. I eat vegetables and fruit, and I take a ton of vitamin supplements. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’m a kid! And it’s really upsetting to hear that I might have to give that up and start actually worrying about what I eat to get rid of my acne. Like I said, I’m a kid. When you’re my age you shouldn’t have to say to yourself, ‘Oh, I can’t have that ice cream! It’s high on the glycemic index,’
There has to be some other way, and I personally don’t agree with your opinion on medicine and “unnatural” skin care products.
Hey lovely, I love that fire in you! I think it’s great that you want to come up with your preferred plan – that’s awesome
Hi Fran,
I am a 23yr old girl from India. I was wondering if u know why my face itches before i break out?
Who knows, it could be drying out. Or it could be the infection. If it’s going to itch, usually it will when it’s healing so I’m not sure about why it’s happening BEFORE you get the spots..
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