Acne Magazine

I received the following question from a new reader about Vicodin - she too experienced breakouts while on the popular strong pain reliever prescribed for oral surgeries and several other types of serious pain, and had this question about it’s effects on the skin. 

You posted this comment on AcneMagazine.com, and I’ve responded.  thanks! 

Question :

I am so glad I found this site. I just had two of my wisdom teeth out and was prescribed antibiotics and vicodin. As Tonya mentioned, I am having acne breakouts that I never had in my life…worse than when I was a teenager. I have been trying to figure out if the break-outs were from the antibiotics or the vicodin. Hearing from other experiences makes me feel better. I have stopped use of vicodin for a couple days now and I think the break outs were delayed reaction. How soon did your skin clear up after? Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks!

Hi there!  Thanks for reading this blog, we always love aquiring new readers who can share experiences!  Yeah, with the Vicodin, it was a delayed response for me.  I noticed my skin flare up big time about 2-3 days after I started taking it, and since I always correlate anything that speeds up my heart rate with breaking out, I knew that it had to be the Vicodin that was breaking me out. 

I’m not exactly sure if Vicodin causes hormonal changes, but I wouldn’t doubt it since many stimulants and downers have been known to interfere with hormonal balance and trigger changes in the hormones testosterone and estrogen, which is pretty much trouble for acne sufferers. 

I discontinued the use of Vicodin (weening off, of course, you never want to quit this kind of stuff cold turkey), and noticed that my skin cleared up about 4 days later.  It must have just been a matter of getting it all out of my system, but my skin did pretty much return to normal after that.  I’m not sure how this can be avoided if you’re on this class  of pain relievers, and that thing that stinks is that certain surgeries require stronger pain meds, and many over the counter ones that won’t touch that pain, like Tylenol, of course don’t cause the same skin flare up issues as the serious narcotic pain relievers like Vicodin. 

I hope this helps a bit.  Rest assured, the damage isn’t permanent and your skin will return to normal.  Just try not to pick at them so you won’t get any scarring leftovers. 

Hi!!!
I was wondering if you ever did the Master Cleanse? If you did, was it a success with you acne?

Hi Vicky.  Yes, I have tried the Master Cleanse diet, but unfortunately I could not make it far enough on the rigorous fasting diet to determine whether it was of benefit to my skin or not.  However, I can say that I experienced no breakouts at all during the almost 3 days I was on the diet, and it did seem that I was starting to achieve a sort of clarity in my skin that I had only seen when I was on a really good role with my diet (ie, eating lots of fruits and veggies, limiting meat and carbs etc.)

The Master Cleanse diet has been widely reported by it’s users to help clear up the skin and a massively big help to the skin in many ways, not just to help clear up acne though, and with the regimented cleanse, I am sure that it would be nothing but good for the skin, especially since it doesn’t contain any known irritants to the skin, and also because of the internal cleansing the diet itself helps to do to the body, which always helps the skin out, no matter what your skin problems are, as many people can attest to.

My sister did the full ten days on the Master Cleanser diet, and she said her skin looked really amazing, so I do have someone I trust who told me from personal experience that this diet helped their skin.  Sorry I couldn’t help you out more on this one, but I really found that the diet is pretty tough, especially if you’re someone who loves to eat, like me

Well, of course decaf is probably the best choice if you love coffee and can’t cut it out all together - make that organic decaf, but after a little while of trying to drink organic, freshly ground coffee beans, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is, for some reason, definitely less aggravating to my skin.  I’ve posted several times before how I believe coffee and other highly caffeinated drinks tend to make my skin break out and make the texture of my skin rough.

Now, since I’m finding it harder to wake up in the morning and stay alert, I’ve decided to try grinding organic coffee beans, as I had read somewhere that they don’t have pesticides in them and may be less inflammatory to the system (hence, the acne flare ups, in my opinion), so I decided to give this more expensive, but also much tastier option a try.

The result is that the organic freshly ground coffee has not aggravated my skin as much at all.  Of course, the best choice still in my opinion is to abstain from caffeine intake all together, but if you have to drink coffee, drinking organic may be the way to go.  Not only does it a taste a lot better and is probably much better for the body than drinking altered, chemically sprayed coffee beans, but you may also notice your skin doesn’t flare up when you drink it as much.  Just a thought! 

I had received a question/feedback from a reader who asked whether there might be an outbreak period on the Dermacleanse pills and acne system, and from my previous experience with the line of acne products and with the Dermacleanse supplement, I advised her that I did experience a period of worsening in my acne breakouts before it got better. 

I explained to her that my educated guess would be that this is almost a purging of the oil possibly, since it’s supposed to calm the nervous system and even out hormones, and in the process may make them fluctuate from their “normal levels” for a bit, or potentially could be just an adjustment that the body and oil production system needs to make while being adjusted.  Mine lasted maybe two weeks or so if I remember correctly, could have been a bit less, but it got so much better after that, and cleared me right up. 

I have to admit, I don’t have any kids yet, so I’m pretty ignorant when it comes to some parenting terms like “swaddling”, “binky” and other terms and euphamisms used in the world of baby and child care.  So, when I heard the term “baby acne” I was likewise confused.  I thought, wait a second, how does a baby get acne when they’re hormones haven’t even begun to kick in, and they are pure as the driven snow, meaning nothing has polluted their body yet.  Also, no worrying or anything, so how does a baby get acne?

Well, baby acne and adult and teen acne are really not too much alike, which explained a lot to my pea sized brain when it comes to baby talk.  Baby’s may break out in rough, red rashes that look very much like acne, and in fact, they are called baby acne if they meet certain criteria.  Many parents at first think that baby acne is a rash or allergic reaction at first, at must usually get the redness and bumps diagnosed by a pediatrician before they can confirm it is actually baby acne.

Here’s the very interesting part though.  Baby acne is caused by hormones of the mother’s crossing the placenta into the baby’s living space so to speak, so baby acne is actually hormonally caused!  Crazy, isn’t it, that a tiny baby can be affected that much by it’s mothers hormones simply crossing the barrier of the placenta before the child is actually born into this world.

Whiteheads can appear, not just red bumps, and the acne usually doesn’t show up right when the child is born, but just a few weeks after, when the mother’s hormones interact with the child’s body and produce chemical reactions that make the kid’s skin break out.  It usually goes away on it’s own, and usually goes away in a few weeks, when the hormones that caused it in the first place are dashed out of the child’s system through simply running their course. 

This is interesting, now I’m wondering if I ever had baby acne as a child - sure would explain a lot.  I’m just kidding - I know that probably has nothing to do with getting it later in life - right, right???

I’m not a fan of narcotic pain relievers.  One, they are extremely addictive, and two they make me break out.  They also make my heart speed way up, and I seriously question their safety.  Problem is, when you have a surgical procedure done, nothing else will even put a dent in the pain you’re feeling, and you many times need a narcotic pain reliever like Vicodin or Percocet, or worse yet Oxycontin, to even be able to have some sort of pain relief.

I recently had a fairly minor procedure done where I had the birthmark on my leg removed.  They also had to remove a piece of skin from my groin area, about the size of a fifty cent piece to graft onto the hole that the birthmark removal essentially left in my skin. 

You see, my birthmark was on the front of my right shin, and this area provides very little flexible skin to actually cover up the hole that was left when they dug the birthmark out, so they had to take excess skin from somewhere else on my body where it was more readily available to graft it on and hope that it would grow over.  The tissue had to be able to pick up a blood supply from the graft, and that is what would make the graft successful - so yeah, I’m laid up a bit for a few days so that my blood supply is more likely to lend itself to this new skin - fun! 

Anyways, I got way off track.  To combat the pain associated with the trauma, they prescribed Vicodin for me.  I’ve had this prescribed before when I had oral surgery a few times, so I am aware of how it works, and I’m also aware that if I take the whole pill, it will make my face break out.  I’m extremely sensitive to anything that speeds up my nervous system, which is why when I initally chose to treat my acne naturally, I chose the Zenmed Dermacleanse system because it helps calm the nervous system, which was my largest problem in my opinion. 

While I thought that Vicodin and other narcotic pain relievers acted as a nervous system depressant on most people, apparently it doesn’t work that way on me.  I get extremely hyper and feel as though my heart if going to beat out of my chest, and I felt as if my mind was racing twice as fast as the words I could get out of my mouth.  Oddly, with these narcotic pain medicines, there is a short time frame where I would feel amost euphoric (I know, scary), so I can see how so many people get addicted to them (yes, I know, scary again). 

My point is, that after a couple of days of just taking half doses, I noticed that my back has broken out, and my face is just now starting to break out.  Now, it could be a delayed reaction to the stress of the surgery because I do acknowledge that I felt stress about the shots I had to get for the anasthetic to set in, but I also am not ruling out the fact that the Vicodin may also be contributing to it, because I’m correlating it to other things that make my heart race and nervous system speed up that make me break out, like diet pills and stimulants with caffeine, guarana, or ephedrine in them.  Makes sense, doesn’t it?  Please readers, share with us if you’ve had similar experiences while on narcotic pain relief medications. 

I received this question from a reader and wanted to post it (anonymously) so that if anyone else had the same question they could find the answer here. 

Question :
Hello,

I have just read an article on the acne magazine website about
vitex/chaste berry and its ability to regulate female hormones. I am
23 years old and about a year ago I started suffering from moderate
acne. My acne has developed because I have an excess of androgens in
my body and I am trying to seeks a natural remedy to bring my hormones
into their natural balance. I have conducted some research about vitex
and I cannot seem to fully understand whether it would help me. I have
read that it decrease estrogen is that correct? does that mean is I
take it it would just worsen my androgen-estrogen imbalance? I have
taken birth control to regulate my acne and it worked but my sex drive
was reduced and I had countless yeast infections.

Could you answer my question for me or is there someone you could
recommend me to? preferrably someone I can interact with via email
since i am in XXXXXX.

Your assistance is much appreciated.

Answer :