thanks cc camilo well stated!
Fishnets your skin is 3 months old and it will take this long and longer for you to see a difference in your skin. I have no idea what you mean by eating healthy, because many people think that eating a piece of fruit and vegetables now and then is considered a healthy diet but its not. Because usually these diets still consist of a lot of carbohydrates/dairy/meat etc. What im intending for people on this diet and looking at herbs is to cleanse the body of all the excess that we have created in our body clogging up our eliminative organs. Eating healthy now and then is not going to make a difference in your skin straight away you have to stick to it, its a lifestyle change! and it is your choice if you would like to be healthy or unhealthy, but those that choose to have a healthy lifestyle will live longer with more energy, happiness and without disease.

Ok I'm not suggesting at all that people shouldn't eat healthy, I think everyone should! However, all I'm saying is that I don't know that changing your eating habits are really going to have much of an impact. Of course when I say I don't notice a difference, I'm talking about PERSONAL experience, I can't say that this isn't the case for anyone else. Neither did I ever say I just started eating healthy yesterday.

Rachel18 I know it can be difficult to determine if someone says "I eat healthy" whether they actually do or they just think they are. However, I've been vegetarian for 3 years, eat very little dairy(haven't drinken a glass of milk in 10 years), and try to avoid any candy/chips/desserts. I eat plenty of fruits and veggies everyday, consume flaxseed oil, and take a multivitamin everyday. Back when I was in high school I used to eat lots of junk, regular soda, pizza, nachos, you know the typical kid. Between then and now my KP has only been affected by exfoliating lotions. Mind you, I'm NOT saying people should just eat unhealthy, cause there's a lot worse things that will happen to you then KP by eating ****py! However I'm just saying my personal experience.

If diets play a big factor in kp, being a vegetarian even vegan might not be helpful in the healing process. Most vegetarian/vegan diets consist of meat substitutes containing wheat and gluten by products and dairy. Some brands even contain MSG in other forms (i e....gelatin, calcium caseinate, hydrolyzed vegetable protien...and so on go here for a complete list).

I feel the less processed the food the better so why not go raw? There are some really delicious uncook recipies out there.

Hey fishnet. Yeah the main reason i did this thread was to give people advice about eating healthy because most of the people that did the questionnaires, their diets weren't the greatest and there are very few people that actually do eat as healthy as u. Anyway one thing that is interesting is that all of us ate very poorly when we were younger so what i really think we all need to do is just do some sort of cleanses which will help clear the excess in our bodies allowing our eliminative organs to run at their optimum. i think doing this inconjunction with a healthy diet could help us a lot. However a healthy diet does come first before cleansing, because if you cleanse yourself and you still have a poor diet you will start the process all over again. Now its just determining what sort of cleanses we should do!

Morningbell. I agree with you i know a lot of vegetarians that i consider 'lazy' vegetarians where they do avoid meat but do not intake that many vegetables and eat alot of pasta etc. With a raw food diet, this would take a lot of determination! just cutting out wheat and dairy is hard but i do no that it is very beneficial. My nutrition teacher is a raw foodist and absolutely swears by it, she had several diseases and found that raw food was the only thing that cured her. I would love to have the willpower to do that, but another thing that bothers me is losing too much weight while on a raw food diet. I am underweight as it is and am trying very hard to put on weight the healthy way and i think if i were to change to raw foods i would lose weight rapidly. Do you have any insight you could give on this? do you have a raw food diet yourself?

Hi Rachel! Thanx for the answeres! I really believe that eating healthy and getting the right amont of vitamins in your body changes how u feel and also how ur skn looks, i have started eating heatier and I will keep it up!

I just have one more question about getting enough vitamin A, what do u do? Because I drink two glasses of carrotjuice a day but is that enough if I am sufficient? or is there any other vegetable with more karoten so u get enough for one day?

Thanx alot for answering all these questions Would'nt it be great if this was the answere, just eating healthier and getting all these vitamins on a daily basis! WOW I would be sooooooooo glad!

My co worker was in a car accident and had lower back pain, she kept it at bay with her diet, she suggested I do the same although she wasn't completely raw, more like 70% to 80% raw.

Eating raw isn't as hard as some think. I have been eating raw for 3 months until I was dog sitting. I was in a place where I couldn't eat raw for a week, I also missed my morning shot of wheatgrass juice I have noticed that during that time, just 2 days off my raw diet I was feeling it! The primary reason I went raw was infamation in my knee, the pain came back (and other pains I forgot I had) after a week off my raw diet. I also noticed my forehead breaking out and I was so tired. I don't keep it all raw, I drink Juvo with rice milk.

There is a great book out there by Jennifer Cornbleet called "Raw Food Made Easy: For 1 or 2 People" The recipes are super simple and you can make most in the same time it would take to prep a meal because there is no cooking. The only "ahead of time" things you would have to do is soak nuts and seeds or dehydrate. I can make most recipes with just a blender and food processor.

I just remember what this German woman would say to me when she shopped at the store where I work, "eat like a caveman" ie...raw food!

I work at a natural foods store, we sell vitamins, supplements, organic foods, health, beauty items and clothing (to name a few) so I'm helping people all day. Both my co-worker and I have kp and are dealing with it pretty much the same (ie..exfoliate, moisturize etc...) but I have been using organic extra virgin raw coconut oil, the same kind my husband cooks with and I have found out that the EFA ratio in hemp oil better than the EFA ratio in flax. I do all 3 oils (the coconut goes on my skin). After slathering my arms and back with coconut oil the next day my sin was so smooth! I have been also drinking carott juice too, I can't wait to see if there is a change (I use the 3 month rule).

I read in another post about how "the pumicer" decided to sand his skin down and swab it with alcohol. The only thing I could think of when I read this was that our skin is the largest organ in our body, why would you want to abuse that organ by such means? I equate it to abuse of your liver if you were a binge drinker. Not that I'm saying his way was wrong but I am determined to find a more gentler way.

Closing words: Be patient, stressing never makes things better.

i am shocked at all the things you said that apply to me. I struggle with I.B.S and have also had to have my gulbladder removed. I'm only 25. I never had acne either until i got my gb removed as well. Now I have constant breakouts on my face. I'm sure it doesnt help that I smoke and dont eat properly. I guess how this affects my kp is just one more good reason to change my life style. Thanks for the info.

I think that this advice is great...I've looked into the Liver cleanse and I totally want to do it after reading about it. I think your advice has to do with just a better lifestyle. With a better overall lifestyle it should be easier to deal with KP. Not that changing your diet will "cure" it but that you should focus on changing your whole body rather than just parts of it.

Rachel, thanks so much for all the time you put into your posts; they are always so informative. I have one concern, though. The link you gave regarding liver cleansing is for a site dedicated to the philosphy of a really, really controversial woman, who has been sued a number of times for malpractice (although she has no medical degree)... While I agree with your analysis on the importance of cleansing, I thinks it's imperative that we precede with caution here. Is there another way in which we could cleanse? You've outlined some solid dietary ideas for promoting a healthy system... What would be some good ways to cleanse after we have achieved the first step of a good diet/lifestyle?

I'm only 19, and I have been eating extremely healthy (by that I mean NO junk food, NO fast-food, NO soda/pop, 90-100% organic produce, a variety of raw and cooked veggies and fruits each day, nuts a few times a week, legumes almost every day, little to no refined sugars, little to no dairy, virtually no red meat, fish at least once a week, and very little wheat) for almost two years now and have not seen any difference in my KP. Supplements (and I have tried them ALL, giving each enough time to work) have not served to improve its appearance, either. My mom, who also has KP, is an extremely healthy individual, and has tried everything, can't say that any dietary changes have ever helped her skin, either.
Having said this, I absolutely agree with the idea that eating healthy and exersizing (and all that good stuff) can only help ones body to function more properly, perhaps positively effecting one's KP - it just hasn't affected mine. So I don't know where that leaves me. As someone who has been struggling with chronic fatigue and foggy-headedness for the last few years, and allergies, anxiety, and KP for the better part of her life, I can say it's frustrating building a list of causes to your problem(s), then crossing most everything off that list you worked so hard to build, leaving you worried that you will never find a solution (I know we all know how that feels)... But I still have hope, and am so grateful for sites such as this one.
My current theory on the more root cause of KP is that is is a nutrient deficiency or imbalance of some kind (a saw a naturopath who said it was a vitamin A deficiency, read numerous places saying it was a vitmain A and zinc deficiency, also read many places that it has to do with calcium, vitamin D, and lif minerals, etc.). But the root reason behind THAT could be due to a number of things:

1. Poor diet/lifestyle - Too much junk food, not enough veggies and fruits and fiber and all that good stuff, and not enough exercise, etc.

2. Hormone imbalance - Many people on this forum have seen an improvement through a progesterone pill or cream, and hormones regulate the nutrients in our bodies. Rachel's right in saying that an imbalance of hormones that leads to a dominance in estrogen can cause painful periods, not to mention poor circulation, mood swings, and a range of other issues one would never thing associated with hormones.

3. Candida overgrowth and/or parasites in the gut/body - This can, from what I understand, lead to a "leaky gut" and poor digestive system that does not make good use of nutrients and can cause free-radical damage to the body's cells. Allergies and mucus production are associated with this condition. A cleansing program has helped some people on this forum, and others I know personally.

4. Allergies - As Rachel noted, a lot of KP sufferers from this site have allergies, and one who posted here said that she saw an improvement just by taking Claritin (or some other allergy med)!

- My diet is in place for right now, and excersize has helped my mood and increased my energy... but no change in KP.

- My hormones have been out of whack the last few months and maybe the last few years, according to a resent blood test I had done, so I am currently on bioidentical progesterone. It takes a few weeks to see a difference, and I am only on my second week, so I will let you know... I WILL say this, though: I was on Provera (a more powerful synthetic version of progesterone) for 10 days to regulate my period, and saw some of my KP go away, and felt great, so I am hoping the bioidenticals help even more.

- The third "cause" is one I will address after I work with the hormones a bit. I had a doctor who specializes in Candida overgrowth recommened to me, and have been wanting to try cleansing (I just don't know which cleanse to do). Anyway, this is in the future.

- Hopefully the second or third "cause" will aid my allergy symptoms (no meds have helped!).

Finally, please know everyone that, unlike posters like Rachel who, as I understand, is attending school in naturopothy (Rachel please correct me if I am wrong!), I am merely a fairly well-read, average KP sufferer whose theory is the culmination achieved after spending so much time on the internet and talking to people about this nasty skin condition... Anyway, I am no "expert."

Thanks again to everyone here!

Peace!

Namaste,
- Green Bean

Hey green bean. I do agree with you about the website regarding the liver cleanse which i am going to delete because at first it did seem a good idea to do the cleanse, if you read many of the messages that people have wrote bout their magnificent results from the cleanse. But i have talked to numerous naturopaths and they have said that they do not suggest anyone does it, because it is a lot of stress to put on the body with drinking all of that olive oil/epsom salts and is a very aggressive way to do things. But there are many cleanses to do, im stuck like you i have no idea what sort to do. Im cleansing my liver with some herbs at the moment but will take a while to see results but i think opting for this method is much better for the body.

Another thing that i wanted to ask regarding your chronic fatigue and foggy headedness. I was just wondering if you are a fairly stressed out person, or do you drink a lot of coffee or have in the past or any other stimulants such as drugs/smoking/alcohol etc. It's just that chronic fatigue is often associated with either adrenal problems or anaemia, anyway just thought i could help with treatment options for you because i know that diet alone can not cure these problems. Anyway if you don't feel comfortable talking about it on the board just message me!

Oh, Rachel, you are awfully sweet. Thank you! I am also glad to hear that other naturopaths don't recommend it because that narrows down my many, many options as to what cleansing program I should use .

I will write you personally within the next day or so regarding my chronic fatigue, not because I am worried about confidentiality, but I want to spare everyone else here my complicated and confused medical history.

Peace - and thanks!

Namaste,
Green Bean

Rachel I don't know if you still go on this forum, I thought this post was very informative and wanted people to read it.