Why I am now dairy free (except for parmesan and yogurt)

[cimorene]

I posted last May that I was giving tea tree oil face swabs a try for chronic acne. I had tried benzoyl peroxide before and given up on it due to the side-effects, and there was some evidence (link at the link) that their efficacy was approximately equal.

Well, as of one month ago my face had cleared up completely. Like, for the first time since puberty, there was not one single actively inflamed pimple on it.

However, I made two changes at the same time actually:

• Swabbing my face with ~7 drops of 10% tea tree oil (from the Body Shop) on a cotton pad after washing it. Not completely regularly - it varies between every two days to twice per day. After this, I usually apply a small amount of unscented hypoallergenic noncomedogenic moisturizer, but sometimes I'm in a rush or forget.



• About 1 month previously I had cut milk products out of my diet, not just lactose-free ones. -- I still consumed yogurt and small amounts of parmesan, but I've since read that many people's stomachs respond more favorably to yogurt and hard cheese, so I'm not alone there.

Now, I'm not allergic or heavily lactose intolerant. Eating even a lot of regular dairy isn't actually painful for me, just uncomfortable.

But it was easy to try low-lactose and lactose-free products, which are readily available here, and with my other food sensitivities having mostly gone away I was easily able to discern the difference. Then last summer a friend who has more severe lactose intolerance said she had noticed increased wellbeing when she avoided dairy entirely. I decided to give it a try in the spirit of scientific inquiry.

That was the result after perhaps six weeks or so. After a while I thought I really wanted some cream cheese and olive bagels, and bought some lactose-free cream cheese, which I ate most of in the space of a week. And the week after that two new breakouts appeared, on my forehead and my earlobe. I threw the rest of the cream cheese out and the breakouts healed pretty quickly, which has also been the case ever since I started using tea tree oil.

I know many people who couldn't give up dairy for the sake of acne. My mom has food sensitivities that she aggravates constantly and she always says it's worth it for the food. On the other hand, she's had to have surgery a couple of times on different parts of her digestive tract since I was in high school, and she probably still thinks it's worth it; but I definitely wouldn't. Then again, if you haven't had the kind of chronic acne I've had then perhaps the amount of relief in question is hard to conceive of. And really, compared to other people I know who do have it, mine was rather mild.

(Of course, in a scientific sense, I can't separate the two potential causes here. No idea what would happen if I'd dropped dairy without any topical treatments. I do have an idea, from the months between may and august, that the other way round results in very slightly less acne that heals notably faster, but is still a significant pain in the butt.)

Comments

[laurajv]

I made myself very sick recently because I likewise indulged in cream cheese, over a period of several days. I find that courses of yogurt actually help my insides recover from that sort of thing.

[cimorene]

Interesting! I eat yogurt regularly but I'm picky about flavors, which restricts the frequency because I'm too lazy to make a special trip to a big store.

[laurajv]

yeah, I am also picky, but luckily I'm near the big store, and also luckily, one of the things I like is a particular brand of kefir in blueberry flavor, which is easy to find in this part of the city. So I pretty much buy a bottle of that a week (it has about 5-6 glasses per bottle). Kefir has more/different cultures in it than standard yogurts (at least, here it does) and seems to be more helpful to my particular issues. (Like you, I am mostly on parmesan + yogurt as my only dairy, and I really, really notice it when I slip up for more than a meal or two.)

[cimorene]

Oh, cool! I've never had kefir, but it sounds intriguing. I used to buy yogurt by the carton, but they discontinued the flavor I liked the best that way...

[krait]

Glad that it seems to be working for you! And that's interesting about the tea tree oil; I've recently switched (in part) myself from benzoyl peroxide, strictly for cost reasons. Not really noticing much difference in levels of spots, but I guess that means both products are equally ineffective... :D

(I'll quit dairy sometime around February 31, two-thousand-and-never. Except for actual milk, which tastes gross. Thank you, O cast-iron stomach, for the things you tolerate!)

[cimorene]

Well, I would guess that dairy wouldn't bother your skin if it didn't bother your stomach... but then again, I know nothing. I suppose I've been assuming it worked like a mild allergy, but then it could still be an extremely strange coincidence.

I did find BP mostly ineffective, or rather, only slightly effective, and the difference wasn't significant enough to be worth the price, trouble, ruined towels and shirts and pillowcases, and discomfort. But I know that for some people it works really well and for other people it caused such a reaction that they couldn't use it at all... so it seems plausible tea tree oil would have a similarly wide range of effects.

dairy

[fredericka_dragontea]

Speaking as your mom, I have NOT had surgery on any part of my digestive system except a hernia repair. These little issues I did have were mostly not all that painful -- the ones caused by what I eat. The hernioa turned uout to be the cause of the horrendous discomfort I used to have. More recently, I have discovered I have diverticulosis, and it is painful. In fact, now that I actually have days with NO low level pain, I realize I nhave had almost constant low-level pain for a long time. The fods I gave up are peanuts, which I am convinced causes pain. Once I realize that it hurts to even think about cheating. I almost entirely avoid fresh pineapple and one other food. Cannot remember what it is. Excessive chocolate does give me mouth sores or cold sores, too.