One of the biggest killers of self-esteem, source of some of the most desperate patients, and foundation for one of the most exploitative markets, acne is an unpleasant and very ambiguous subject. I had extensive acne for years, from the time I hit puberty up until about a year and a half ago. During that time there was always some manner of breakout taking place on my face - whiteheads, blackheads, nodules, pustules, all those big buzz words; you name it, I probably had it, though thankfully not all at once and even more thankfully with minimal scarring. Still, it has had a profound, lingering impact on my psyche and the way I view myself overall, oftentimes in ways that I'm not consciously aware of at the time.



Fact: Nobody Really Understands Acne

The biggest question I had about acne was why? Why me and not all the other kids? What were they doing that I wasn't? Even as a young adolescent I understood that if I could get to the root of the problem then I could likely discover a solution. However, nobody seemed to be able to answer this question. Dermatologists, health websites, advice websites all seemed to offer the same noncommittal blanket answers: "diet, skin type, genetics, hygiene habits, yadda yadda yadda." None of that means anything, and the truth is nobody has ever really given a satisfactory reason for why some people get acne and some people don't. That's pretty amazing in this day and age - something that exists outside of science, as only the most destructive illnesses can.



So nobody knows what causes acne, and therefore nobody knows how to get rid of it. All they can do is treat the symptoms, the clogged pores and the boils and the scars. For that reason it's something that I just learned to live with, though in the back of my mind I would often throw various theories around and look for correlations between diet, exercise and other habits versus the severity of the outbreaks.



A More Holistic Look at the Problem

As I got older I started exploring more alternative medicine and holistic cures and such. Nothing too New Age-y, just things like medicinal herbs, the affect mental and emotion health plays on physical health, and the awesome and oft-documented power underlying human willpower. I came to the somewhat obvious realization that our bodies are designed to be healthy, which many people don't really think about: at any given time, our body is striving toward an optimal state of wellness. It's always fixing itself. So clearly, in order for the skin to be so severely diseased there is some aggravating factor being introduced and upsetting the balance of the system. (But why just on the face? Without tying in mentality and belief-systems, that is difficult to explain.)



Pesticide Allergies?

Even more recently, as I've begun to explore organic alternatives and gained an understanding of the kind of crap that goes into the majority of the food we eat, thoughts like "pesticide exposure" and "allergic reactions" cross my mind more and more. Pesticide levels are much higher in certain foods than they are in others, and not all the same pesticides are present in each food. That could possibly account for the seemingly lack of any kind of coherent pattern to the frequency and severity of outbreaks, and also why only certain people are affected.



I actually have pretty significant allergies to many animals (including cats and most dogs) and also pine trees. I'm so used to this that it's hard to believe that some people can touch a cat and rub their eyes with them turning red and watery and puffing up, but it's definitely true. With an allergy, you either have it, or you just flat out don't. If acne is an allergic reaction that some people experience when exposed to pesticide residue or other toxins, then that explains perfectly why certain people can be so badly affected by it and others not at all.



These are just a couple of my experiences, thoughts and speculations on the difficult subject of acne. It is such a inexplicable illness, and so common among our population that I personally feel it bears much more attention and study than it currently receives.