During my senior year of high school, I was unwillingly pushed into a phase of teenage acne that most parents said you’d grow out of. This pesky interference with my day to day life wreaked havoc on my self-esteem, my self-awareness and my insecurities. Suddenly, I thought everyone was staring at me, I thought every selfie was a bad one, and I couldn’t look anyone in the eyes when I talked to them because I thought all they would notice were those blemishes on my chin.
Going into college seems like a step forward, in life, in education and hopefully with my skin. I went to the dermatologist, determined to clear my skin before stepping foot onto campus and so that I can put those troubling thoughts of teenage acne behind me. After visiting the doctor, they told everything I had already researched on my own, through websites, YouTube videos and my friends. The doctor said the words “hormonal acne,” which to my ears was the worst-case scenario. You see, when the dermatologist tells you that your acne is hormonal this means that there is no topical treatment that can cure your skin, and that everything that is causing your breakouts occurs on the inside and you can’t stop it with expensive, magical creams.
Most of my friends told me that birth control was the only option, and it would be a miracle for anyone with hormonal acne. I left that to my last result because I had done my own research on birth control in the past, seeing that it came with a long list of unwanted side effects. Instead of jumping straight into emergency pill popping mode, I did some more research on natural cures of hormonal acne. This is what lead me to going dairy free. I had a heard a lot of rattle about how dairy is full of hormones, it can spike your insulin, it causes acne, yada yada yada…
The truth is every time I pictured my Friday nights ending at the Italian Gator with an ooey gooey piece of cheese pizza, I lost hope in that remedy. I mean how could I give up the three loves in my life, cheese, ice cream, and pizza! It seemed like a sin to even think about. But when my skin started to get worse I thought all hope was lost and I needed to try something new. So, one night I decided to clear my fridge of cream cheese, cheddar squares, Ben and Jerry’s and good ‘ole butter. I chose to go two months off dairy to see how it affected my skin. As I wept while taking all these precious objects to the dumpster, I felt a glimmer of hope, that something would change within me and give me better skin.
It wasn’t until after a month that I had noticed anything change about my skin, in fact, after two weeks I almost caved on some enticing soft serve ice cream. The biggest difference I saw in my skin was that the inflammation had gone down significantly. Where my blemishes were large and red, they had calmed down quite a bit, and even though I still saw scattered bumps here and there, it wasn’t as inflamed or as frequent as before. As you can see, going dairy free may not be the cure, but it sure did help. Especially if your blemishes tend to be extremely irritated and red, cutting down the dairy may not be such a sinful thought.
Nearing the end of my second month, I can’t say this lifestyle is for everyone. Especially coming from a college student who thrives off of 2 a.m. Domino calls, I’m not sure how much longer I can hold off. However, if worse comes to worse and you are looking for some hope for clear skin, dairy could be your trigger. Maybe going a couple months off of ice cream could be exactly what your skin needed!