Quote from SweetJade1:
Hey Erica,
I honestly don't remember what my intial dosage was. It may have been 500mg, but that wasn't effective so he bumped me to 1000mg.
After 3 months, that still wasn't doing the trick AND it was making me sick, so I switched to 2mg of Avandia and added back in a lower dosage of Spironolactone (150mg). That combo got me a little bit clearer than my former Spiro-BC combo. I would say that during Fall/Winter/Spring I was 75%- 80% clear, but I was still breaking and I STILL had Body Acne. In the Summer, I fare better anyway and so with this combo I was 85%- 90% clear, but I still had body breakouts. The only thing that STOPPED my Breakout cycle (that 9 month cycle above) and eliminated my body acne was changing my diet to something that controlled my Insulin Levels and Inflammator responses.
So why do you ask? HAve you been DX as PCOS or Insulin Resitant?
No, i haven't been DX as PCOS or Insulin resistant but i read this board all of the time and do a little of my own research, and it is something that I am interested in looking into since I have read many posts about how controlling diet has helped people and have read a lot of research on insulin resistance and acne.
I am thinking about making an appointment with an endocrinologist, but to be honest I'm scared. I gave up on doctors (specifically dermotologists) after nothing helped for years. I started taking spiro without a prescription after reading about it here, and it keeps me pretty clear, but I don't really like the idea of being on this drug, especially since i'd like to have kids someday and I dont want to go off of it and be fat and pregnant and have a face full of zits ;)
But I'm not sure that I have PCOS and even if it turned out that I did, I don't know if I like the idea of glucophage or a drug like that any better. Especially since you say it wasn't that effective for you.
I'm looking into diet, and it would be nice to control acne without any supplements or drugs, but I'm not sure that I want to be a slave to my diet and live scared that i'll eat the wrong thing and break out again for the rest of my life either.
have you ever tried supplementing with alpha lipoic acid or chromium? I read that these have been used to fight insulin resistance as well as acne....
