I've been repeatedly let down by my healthcare providers and feel I'm on my health journey alone. I have severe and persistent acne that has proved resistant to every medication dermatologists have thrown at me. Topical after topical, nothing helped. Courses of antibiotics, didn't help. I decided I wanted to try to heal my body internally and went on a gluten-free diary-free and low-sugar diet. Within 6 months my face was completely clear, but as the months went on my skin began to decline and return to it's previous state. Desperate for relief, I decided to go on accutane which is one of my biggest regrets ever. Within a week every inch of my skin was blowing up with painful cystic pimples and all I was being told was that it was just a purge that will go away. I was put on steroids to calm the inflammation but it only helped for a week. After two months the active pain and horrible scarring forming on my face was too much for me to deal with and I stopped the medication. To this day every dermatologist tells me I made a mistake stopping it but they don't know how bad it really was and it's mental impacts (I also experienced drastic weight loss and I'm already underweight). I'm now immersed in understanding the gut-skin axis and learning how I can heal my body from within once and for all. I've been on a Paleo diet + supplements for a year but that unfortunately hasn't helped me at all. I recently got my results back from a stool sample analysis and found I have a huge bacterial dysbiosis in my gut. Based on these results, I just switched to a carnivore diet to try to kill off the overgrowth of a certain bacteria genus. I'm hoping I can one day wake up without throbbing and swelling all over my face and alleviate the severe phobia I have of being in public spaces. Some days I'm even too scared to go out and take out the trash if the sun's out. If you've read this far I appreciate your time and would love to hear your story as well :)
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