Acne Striking Hard

Hey guys so I'm 14 weeks into my cycle of 500mg of test e weekly and on the last leg of it and heading to Mexico soon. I've had mild acne on my back shoulders and chest through my cycle but of course about 2 weeks ago it started spreading and becoming more severe. This week it's gotten real bad fast, it really creeps up on you. The only thing that changed for me was adding 250iu of hcg at week 9. I know hcg will have a slight increase in test, my boys came back what little they had shrunk and I have I believe felt the added calming effect from it I've heard of but believe it may have triggered my acne, or maybe its just the length of time I've been on test. Maybe going past 14 weeks is pushing it. I started half a mg of armidex to start lowering my estrogen in preparation for pct and kind of hoping that will help but the acne hit before I started the armidex.

At this point Im going to be a pimpled mess for my vacation which totally sucks because I'm in peak shape but it was the gamble I played when running my cycle and it is what it is however looking for any suggestions to try to reel it in last minute Ie Products ect. I've started tanning daily for the base tan and hoping that will help. Showering twice a day and scrubbing what I can reach with a louffa and mild acne cleanser cedaphil.

I have the same problem, except my back has had acne my whole life, not just on cycle or TRT. Now it looks terrible. Can’t offer you any suggestions other than to shower right after the gym and before bed. Always wear a clean T-shirt in bed. You probably already do those things.

Tanning can help but thankfully I don’t deal with this issue much at all. I probably have more acne naturally than on 1g plus of gear. I’m lucky.

Time to upgrade your hygiene products, sauna more, and natural tan. After that can try introducing MelanotanII afterwards.

Could also be diet related.

I had a random acne outbreak only on TRT and followed the above. Took about 10 days to fully clear and did a better job than what 6 months of Accutane would do.

tanning has helped for me. it also seems i get less and less every cycle.

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Originally Posted by Windex

Time to upgrade your hygiene products, sauna more, and natural tan. After that can try introducing MelanotanII afterwards.

Could also be diet related.

I had a random acne outbreak only on TRT and followed the above. Took about 10 days to fully clear and did a better job than what 6 months of Accutane would do.

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Do you have any acne products to recommend?

I know part of the problem was being busy working on my house and maintaining work and training so my diet did get too "dirty" and less sleep, less showering and my acne wash was packed up for a couple weeks.

Last 3 days of tanning, sauna, double showers has already shown an improvement. By natural tan I'm assuming you mean the sun which as you know is hard to come by until a couple more weeks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DeeCee112

Do you have any acne products to recommend?

I know part of the problem was being busy working on my house and maintaining work and training so my diet did get too "dirty" and less sleep, less showering and my acne wash was packed up for a couple weeks.

Last 3 days of tanning, sauna, double showers has already shown an improvement. By natural tan I'm assuming you mean the sun which as you know is hard to come by until a couple more weeks.

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I don't use acne products. I Just use proper non toxic hygiene items. So basically items that don't have

- sulfates
- DEA / TEA
- "Fragrance"
- Artificial Colors
- Parabens
etc

Replaced my deodorant, hand soap, sunscreen, etc

Products that satisfy those parameters aren't going to be found at walmart, costco and other chains

Here's a good list for what ingredients to avoid in hygiene products.
I haven't found anything that worked for my TRT acne yet, I might give topical antibiotics like clindamycin a go soon.

https://www.acne.org/comedogenic-list.html

https://m.sephora.com/product/acne-body-wash-P47517

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DeeCee112

Do you have any acne products to recommend?

I know part of the problem was being busy working on my house and maintaining work and training so my diet did get too "dirty" and less sleep, less showering and my acne wash was packed up for a couple weeks.

Last 3 days of tanning, sauna, double showers has already shown an improvement. By natural tan I'm assuming you mean the sun which as you know is hard to come by until a couple more weeks.

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There’s an acne body wash by Murad that you can buy at Sephora. The stuff is amazing and worth the 45$. I’ve included a link...has been awesome with my skin

My girlfriend will have a hayday chirping me about shopping at Sephora haha! But I'm gonna give it a go thanks man

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Originally Posted by DeeCee112

My girlfriend will have a hayday chirping me about shopping at Sephora haha! But I'm gonna give it a go thanks man

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My wife tells me I’m worse than she is! I use a fancy face cleanser, exfoliant, serum and moisturizer! Oh well, whatever holds the aging at bay. As mentioned though, you get why you pay for (most of the time) and avoiding the cheap ingredients really pays off. Keep us posted what you think after you hit Sephora! They have some other body acne scrubs too (there’s a charcoal that’s caught my eye) but I’ve only used the Murad

Sephora has lots of sales and deals

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Windex

Time to upgrade your hygiene products, sauna more, and natural tan. After that can try introducing MelanotanII afterwards.

Could also be diet related.

I had a random acne outbreak only on TRT and followed the above. Took about 10 days to fully clear and did a better job than what 6 months of Accutane would do.

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I have to look more into melanotan II. I read somewhere that it may increase the risk of skin cancer and skin damage, so I kind of stopped researching it. However, if it helps with acne and gives me a nice tan for no negative effects, it sounds good to me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DeeCee112

Do you have any acne products to recommend?

I know part of the problem was being busy working on my house and maintaining work and training so my diet did get too "dirty" and less sleep, less showering and my acne wash was packed up for a couple weeks.

Last 3 days of tanning, sauna, double showers has already shown an improvement. By natural tan I'm assuming you mean the sun which as you know is hard to come by until a couple more weeks.

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I’ve had acne since I was like 13. In school I was the kid with the worst acne for sure. Still have the scares on my back!!
My first course just finished only taking 1 ml test and eq pw and it’s caused me to have more than normal.
I’m nearly 30 so I still get the odd one here and there but the cycle made it a little worse.
It’s the face I’m always concerned about, the couple big ones won’t boyher me on my back but on my face I hate.
Anyway I’ll list what will help

Shower min twice per day most important after gym and before bed. If you can have when you get up too.
Always wash affected area with flannel/scrubber. I don’t use any products just water!
Clean shirts I’m gym everyday, it’s sweat that will make it hundred times worse. Need to keep clean!

Now the two products to save you.
Use the avene before bed. It dries my skin out to much to do during day (it may not to you)
And the best I’ve ever found is acnecyde.
Every spot before bed.
And you can use after your morning shower/gym shower too

Attachment 176635
Attachment 176636

Anyway I hope this helps, it has for me.

You can try Nizoral shampoo and a sea sponge on stick to scrub it in.

Nizoral is available at cvs and amazon

It seems to be calming from a full attack of daily tanning, shower after the gym at night and every morning consisting of scrubbing with hot water and then flipping to ice cold to close pores. That and 20 to 30minute saunas after working out and took Sam's word and grabbed some Murad scrub. Going to need a pole scrubby thing to hit my mid back where it's worse though.

I was also slacking on my water intake which I'm ramped way up so that might be helping.

Thought I'd bring this up as I've been wondering. What exactly causes acne during AAS usage. Why does it usually occur so much worse on the body? My face is as clear as it was before. Is it just the the increased oil production due to elevated testosterone levels which is my understanding? How does testosterone trigger this oil production? Does estrogen play any role in acne?

Just looking to dig into it to see what if anything can be pin pointed and adjusted or eliminated in future cycles.

Prolactin seems to trigger acne in me

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Originally Posted by DeeCee112

Thought I'd bring this up as I've been wondering. What exactly causes acne during AAS usage. Why does it usually occur so much worse on the body? My face is as clear as it was before. Is it just the the increased oil production due to elevated testosterone levels which is my understanding? How does testosterone trigger this oil production? Does estrogen play any role in acne?

Just looking to dig into it to see what if anything can be pin pointed and adjusted or eliminated in future cycles.

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the sebaceous glands in the skin (more located on body then face) have DHT receptors.. when taking Test and getting strong conversation to DHT these glands will become over stimulated. produce oil, clog, get infected, etc. etc..

now some will think, ok then I'll just take a DHT blocker like fina. but unfortunately these only work in type 2 dht receptors founds in hair folicle and prostate, whereas the subaceious glands are a type 3 receptor (I could have that backwards, off the top my head, but either way they are diff receptors).

so the more test, the more conversion to DHT and the more these glands will be overly stimulated.

now some people may also get DHT sides from anabolics and not just androgens (test is an androgen, NOT an anabolic steroid), like Primobolan or Var.. now why is this ? they are 5 alpha reduced derived steroids and can NOT convert to DHT at all or act on DHT receptors. well these drugs can dramatically lower SHBG and displac bounds hormones. the number one hormone that SHBG binds up is DHT (not test). so now you have bound DHT entering the blood stream and increasing and again stimulating these DHT receptors in the skin.

then on the total other side of the coin you have nandrolones that effect progestin and prolactin. these too play a role in the sebaceous glands and thats a whole different thing to deal with.

then theres the debate wither or not androgens themselves can act on these type 3 receptors and not just DHT.

its one of the hardest side effects to deal with imo.

side note - if your taking Creatine, stop. it promotes the increase of DHT and will worsen your acne

one more side note here - I have a client that always use to get pretty bad acne from test and from tren. he always used to run an AI with his cycles. this last cycle we pulled the AI out (as I usually do with most clients) and run just low dose tren with normal dose of test. he had little problem with acne this go.. the AI over use was likely driving more test to be converted to DHT. the higher dose of tren was likely causing progestin issues.

one reason why I find it crazy when guys advise others to take an AI if they are getting acne.

I did not know that about creatine but had coincidently pulled it anyway a couple weeks ago when I decided to ease up on the heavy bulk phase, ditch some water and cut a bit of estrogen down to lean/harden my gains.

I have a buddy that ran 500g of test and got incredibly bad acne.
Next cycle he ran 500g of test and some amount of eq. Another friend of ours advised him to run an ai with this one, he did an experienced almost no acne. Im assuming now that I know more it actually has something to do with the EQ synergistic effect with testosterone lessening testosterone androgenic effects , or was it just the fact every cycle isn't the same?

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Originally Posted by GearHeaded

one more side note here - I have a client that always use to get pretty bad acne from test and from tren. he always used to run an AI with his cycles. this last cycle we pulled the AI out (as I usually do with most clients) and run just low dose tren with normal dose of test. he had little problem with acne this go.. the AI over use was likely driving more test to be converted to DHT. the higher dose of tren was likely causing progestin issues.

one reason why I find it crazy when guys advise others to take an AI if they are getting acne.

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Is it possible just the lower doses of test and Tren, both highly androgenic helped reduce androgenic side effects instead of the lack of ai?

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Originally Posted by DeeCee112

Is it possible just the lower doses of test and Tren, both highly androgenic helped reduce androgenic side effects instead of the lack of ai?

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he only lowered the tren dose (which does not convert to estrogen), kept the testosterone at his normal 500mg per week. an AI does not do crap for tren being it does not aromatize. all the AI was doing in this case was lowering the aromatization of his normal test dosage and allowing more available test to convert to DHT.
the Tren dose was simply lowered to limit progestin effects (which also can cause acne)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DeeCee112

I did not know that about creatine but had coincidently pulled it anyway a couple weeks ago when I decided to ease up on the heavy bulk phase, ditch some water and cut a bit of estrogen down to lean/harden my gains.

I have a buddy that ran 500g of test and got incredibly bad acne.
Next cycle he ran 500g of test and some amount of eq. Another friend of ours advised him to run an ai with this one, he did an experienced almost no acne. Im assuming now that I know more it actually has something to do with the EQ synergistic effect with testosterone lessening testosterone androgenic effects , or was it just the fact every cycle isn't the same?

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EQ , like test will convert to a DHT 'like' metabolite , it converts to DHB . now DHB will bind to DHT receptors, however it will not illicit the effects that DHT does.. so adding the EQ allowed more of his DHT receptors to be bound up yet not illicit the negative dht effects .
likely what happened when he added the EQ in his next cycle and had less acne

Got it, thanks man.