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Alex C.'s avatar

Interesting! The late psychologist Seth Roberts was a staunch advocate of self-experimentation. He also had acne and did experiments on himself. He found that his acne didn't respond to treatment with an oral antibiotic (tetracycline), but it improved with benzoyl peroxide cream. He also found that multi-B vitamin supplements helped, whereas pizza and Diet Pepsi made it worse. https://freakonomics.com/2005/09/seth-roberts-on-acne-guest-blog-pt-iv/

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grillbert's avatar

He definitely had the right idea! Benzoyl Peroxide is now a top-line treatment with and without prescription. I've heard interesting things about the B-vitamins and acne before but haven't checked out the mechanistic literature yet. On the use of oral antibiotics, very few approved acne treatments these days are taken by the oral route. I'm wondering if this is due to a mechanistic barrier between the skin and gut flora (this could also explain the low incidence of side effects with topical antibiotics).

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Sage Grouch's avatar

Have you considered adding topical ivermectin (Sklice) to your regimen? I’ve long suspected that Demodex mites actually cause acne, and adding topical ivermecti—used to eliminate head lice—can kill off the active growth of these mites as well. The antibiotics address the actual infection, and together with the topical ivermectin will eliminate most if not all of the problems associated with acne. It has worked for me!

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grillbert's avatar

interesting, mine has been in remission since i published this but ill check out the literature.

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grillbert's avatar

paid link :(

gimme the TL;DR and ill check it out

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tobym's avatar

Came to this through the Experimental History ‘stack. Will definitely give it a go and report back.

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M Rajakumar's avatar

I believe in Neosporin so much! I put it on everything...... <3.

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Dandelion's avatar

Most nooted twink

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