Hey guys, I am so happy right now. My KP has always been pretty severe on my outer arms and my torso (mainly my arms).

But gradually they have been improving, and today my right arm is almost like a normal person's arm! VERY smooth and barely noticable in good lighting. My left arm is also the BEST IT'S EVER BEEN and the bumps have become smaller, less numerous, and less red.

I am not COMPLETELY sure of the causation / correlation connections, but here is what I've been doing in as much detail as I can give:

Once a day with a meal (meat protein; turkey, lean beef, ham, etc) I take these supplements all at the same time. I typically take them with 2 glasses of water. For a while I would space them throughout the day and I wasn't seeing any results, SO to my knowledge they must be taken TOGETHER as apparently they assist each other in absorption:

Vitamin A (Around here, the concensus seems to be that Vitamin A plays a huge role in KP as people are chugging carrot juice all the time and reporting back results. I agree. I drank carrot juice too, and I DID see some positive results, but the results are better so far with what I'm doing now.)

Vitamin E (My rough hypothesis is that Vitamin E helps the body absorb the Vitamin A, which is why it's so important to take these together. I could be wrong, but from looking at my own results, it's my best educated guess.)

Fish Oil (Good overall for the skin.)

Centrum Multivitamin (Well, my friend who works at Vita Shoppe says that Centrum sucks for the most part since it barely meets the DVs set by the FDA, which are incredibly low. So I'll probably be getting a better multivitamin, but I have been taking this one.)

Magnesium (I read on mercola.com that magnesium helps healthy bacteria form in the gut so that vitamins, etc are absorbed better).

B12 (I remember reading this was good to take but don't really remember why. This probably isn't necessary, but I don't want to start removing variables from the equation since my skin is so great right now.

Also, since last week I have been riding my bike around my college campus between the hours of 12 and 3, so I am exposed to a lot of sun. My ARMS aren't even exposed, but I think I am getting Vitamin D from the sun, which could be helping me.

Leading up to today, I had noticed that my arms would look much better a couple hours after I ate a salad. IMO this is because of all the vitamin A stored in green, leafy vegetables.

I drink water throughout the day. This is important as the water helps transport nutrients in the body. If you drink a ton of water at one sitting, you'll just end up ****ing most of it out. So keep a water bottle near you all day and drink from it when you're thirsty.

I have also been bathing with the Dove Sensitive Skin mousturizing soap bar. Seems like this is the ONLY soap that has never irritated my KP and in fact seems to keep my entire body moisturized. Good stuff. I've been washing with a 5% benzoyl peroxide soap (since I've been dealing with body acne), but I take care to NOT wash any areas with KP with it.

Surprisingly, the acne has been receding bigtime, too. The overall inflammation on my body is going away. I used to have some very noticable inflamed hives on the front of my legs, but that's receded by about 70%.

I have also been avoiding caffeine. I noticed that whenever I consumed caffeine, the overall inflamattion in my body would increase (cheeks would get redder, acne would get redder, KP would get redder). So I've avoided it. I drank a caffeine free Diet Coke earlier today before I went to sleep, and when I woke up my arms looked great, so to the best of my knowledge, aspartame doesn't affect KP, just caffeine. But I would reccomend consuming the diet drinks in moderation and consuming a much larger quantity of water.

I do know for sure that my KP is receding bigtime. It's not my imagination. I got my mom to feel my arms earlier today because I was so excited and she was like , "Holy ****!" Okay, so she didn't SAY that, but that was the look on her face . So KP is DEFINITELY something diet / internal related. Stop with the topical madness! Every single cream I've put on my skin has done nothing good long-term. Most only made the KP greasier and shinier and maybe smoother, but did nothing for the APPEARANCE of it.

Please try and report back. If you really want me to go get the bottles and type out the IUs on all the supplements I take, I'll do it, but only if ya'll ask, because I am lazy!

Good luck dudes and dudettes!

wow, that's a lot of vitamins. could you recommend some brands? i haven't been taking any vitamins since i was 10 years old i think, because i'm kinda overweight and i always had the notion that vitamins make you fatter...

anyway i kinda agree with you. lately i'm feeling more and more that kp IS diet-related. i used to live in a tropical country - Philippines - for 13 years and just moved back to Canada last year..but the amount of kp is still a lot no matter where i am. i do however notice it's getting worse since i moved back to Canada, but i'm not sure if i'm getting it because of the weather or because of my change in diet (everything's frozen here in Canada, unlike in the Philippines you're able to buy fresh food). i personally think it's the diet, because even though it's summer now here, my skin is still really bad. i really wonder if anyone has tried curing their skin problem with just a diet change? i also notice that when my bowel movement's not that ok, more bumps come out. one thing i'm sure of is that when i eat shrimp, my kp immediately gets worse. but some of the bumps go away after a few days, so i still eat shrimp

i've had kp for years, i'm not actually sure when i first started having it (my mom says it could've started after i had blood transfusion due to sickness when i was 11 - i don't quite believe it, because i have 2 other cousins who have it; theirs is just not as bad as mine). i'm kinda lucky because my friends have never made me feel bad about having kp, so i was able to ignore it. until now. lately, more and more bumps have been coming out - on my arms, thighs, legs, face, and even some on my chest and around my belly button.

i believe in the diet thing becaue i have a cousin in the Philippines (she used to stay in Canada for 2 years when she was 8-10 years old), who lost a lot of her bumps after losing weight at the age of 18. i used to convince myself that my bumps will go away once i lost weight, that's why i just let it be, but after all these years of kidding myself, i've finally come to the realization that i lack that conviction to lose weight. <_<

now, i just want to find a way to help myself. i'm finally feeling the pressure, especially since i'm now at the age of starting a career. having kp isn't exactly the best thing to have when you're trying to impress a client or whatnot. even i feel unpleasant when i see the amount of kp i have on my arms and legs.

btw, i just got a new family doctor and he recommended i use hydrocortisone, but i've been hesitating to try it. what do you guys think?

thanks stinger911 for posting you're experience. i would really love to try what you did. sorry for such a long post about my own history and observations. i would like to know how long have you been doing this diet/vitamins thing?

thanks!

that's very interesting about the caffeine... so you don't drink coffee at all? not even in the morning?...

It would be hard to give that up!! How long did you go without caffeine when you noticed that the skin felt better?

My comments offset by ">>"

It is DEFINITELY an addicting chemical. I have never been a coffee drinker. I'm just 20 years old and I live in Louisiana, so the only time I ever even entertain the thought of drinking coffee is in the winter.

Thankfully, Diet Coke has a decaffinated version, so I can live with that.

For me personally, if I consume caffine, I will notice the effects very soon after. My overall skin becomes more inflamed. Before my IPL treatments for my rosacea, it would be very obvious in my cheeks. My cheeks would get a lot more red. Caffeine is a stimulant. It increases bloodflow, so in certain people (light-skinned like me, probably), the effects are pronounced.

If I stay off of it for 2 or 3 days, I notice my skin becoming a lot less inflamed.

Another good effect of dropping caffeine is that my brain doesn't feel like it's turned on MTV-mode all the time. I can concentrate for longer periods of time.

Thanks for the response Stinger!

So I guess I could drink decaf coffee??...

I'm currently on an elimination diet, and I'm currently not consuming usual aggressors that are known to worsen skin conditions such as dairy, eggs and soy.

Needless to say, every meal is such a challenge!... but I have 2 cups of coffee a day, and I love my coffee.

Eliminating it would be extremely hard, because what's left to enjoy? air and water!!!!! ahhhhhh....

Ok, I'll try it, and let you guys know! thanks

Vitamin's definitely DON"T make you fat, infact, everyone needs to be taking vitamins.

I used to be very overweight, and then I changed my whole lifestyle. I started exercising regularly and became a vegetarian. That was 6 years ago. My KP is definitely better now then it was then. I too avoid caffeine. It's really bad for your skin in general and can worsen cellulite and acne as well. I put the AHA/Urea/lactic acid lotions on it daily and that helps a lot. I've never been to a dermatologist about it. My mom has it as well as my sisters and I always thought it was just normal. So, I have no traumatic childhood as a result, and I'm not really embarassed about it, although I would love for it to go away completely

Hey there,

Thank you so much for sharing with us. I just want to let you know that yes we do have a vita a deficiency and taking vita a supplements is what I do as well, but you must be careful and take the inactive beta carotene form. You see, there are different forms of vitamin a and the regular vitamin a sold at drug stores and health stores is the retinol form...it's the active form of the vitamin....so too much of it is dangerous. Vitamin A is a complete no no if you're pregnant or think you might be or can get pregnant anytime soon. Studies show that it disrupts development in embryos. Beta carotene is the form of vita a found in carrot juice and it's ok and works just as well.....(actually it works better than the other kind of vita a in my experience). I take 25,000 IU 1 pill beta carotene supplement a day and drink like half a cup to a cup of carrot juice in the morning. Chances are you'll just need the one pill. Take note of how much you're taking now with the vita a and convert to beta carotene.


please let me know if you have questions

Thanks again!

Daze

can you please please let me know the IU's for each vitamin you take.


Thanks a million!

Daze

Stinger911-

Do you think a multivitamin is necessary in your regimine? I'm thinking about trying out what you're doing but it really is a lot of of pills to take...and I'd like to cut down on some if I could. Have you tried any other type of combo?
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Daisy-

I don't really understand the Vitamin A / Beta Carotene concept you were talking about. What do you mean by the inactive form? Will it say that on that bottle of Vitamin A?

Thanks you two!

Amanda

I've been reading your posts here but I just have to disagree with some of the points here.

I've had kp eversince I can remember. Granted that it's not as worse as most of you here (I only have mine on the butt and upper outer thighs) but it hasn't disappeared/improved even if I have been doing the following for several years now:

1. don't drink coffee
2. exercise regularly (i jog 30 mins. 3x a week and do yoga in between)
3. following a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet
4. drink multivitamins + Vit. E

I haven't tried anything to cure it because it never bothered me. I only started to search for the cure when I had a boyfriend whose hands always stray to that body part

Hi all
Hope this helps .......
I rub pure vitamin e oil on my arms daily and my condition has really cleared up i also recently lost around 56 lbs and that also made a difference (less chafing ?) but oddly my right arm is worse than my left and i am right handed (not sure if there is a correlation there )
I try and eat a healthy protein rich diet and have noticed that certain products (caffine, alcohol, chocolate) cause 'flare ups' which die down once i continue to eat healthily. As always the sun is the best cure and mine dissappears over the summer months and on holidays. I also noticed that if i am not drinking enough water my problem gets worse so i try to stay hydrated as possible. :-)

No, I am not sure if it is necessary, but the combo is working pretty well for me, so I don't want to throw any wrenches into the equation. I would hazard a guess that the Fish Oil, E, and A are the essential elements of the combo, but I take a multi just in case any other vitamin assists in the body's absorption of E and A. Magnesium I've read restores good bacteria in the gut, so you absorb vitamins better. The magnesium I take has zinc in it too, and I've read that zinc reduces inflammation. I also try to stay hydrated and drink carrot juice and stay away from caffeine.

Try the other supplements, especially vitamin A. There's growing evidence on this board that KP is strongly linked to either lack of vitamin A or the body's inability to efficiently process vitamin A.

Good job on the rest of the stuff though. I've been working out for the past 2 months or so and yeah I agree, doesn't seem to be too much of a correlation with the KP. I DO notice the KP is more inflamed if I'm hot because of working out.

The reason I drew that relationship in the first place is because I remember in 2003 when I first started working out and eating healthy, my KP wasn't bad at all. This was most likely because of my diet which was high in vegetables (vitamin A) and low in processed foods. I used to eat at a restaurant called "Jason's Deli" everyday and hit up the salad bar. My sleep patterns were also good, so perhaps my overall immune system strengthened.

Yeah, I have definitely noticed caffeine and alcohol causing flare-ups. I never ate much chocolate so I can't comment on that. I noticed the water correlation too.

Where can vitamin E oil be bought? I'd like to try it. I notice traditional creams, while they smooth out the bumps, more often than not exacerbate the APPEARANCE of the KP by making it more inflamed. But I did use a knife to open the Vitamin E softgels a few weeks ago and rubbed that on my arms and left it on overnight, and it seemed to have a soothing effect.