Face update pre Christmas

So last time I told you that I'd discovered that the biotin was causing my acne, basically through trial and error. So since then I've been trying to eat a nicely balanced diet, and if I feel the need to supplement, to do it through food. The only thing I am still taking are the pro-biotics.

Most crucially, I am still sworn off dairy. I'm also trying to limit my wheat gluten intake.

Last week I was on a work meeting and my skin got so much better. I was really strict, check the dairy content of everything and did not succumb to anything that might have dairy in it. Then at the end of the week I had 3 large wheat beers. Normally beer doesn't contain gluten, as the filtration process to create beer removes most of it, but wheat beer and unfiltered beer (called a Zwickl here in Austria) contains gluten. For some reason I decided to drink the wheat beer and I was not a happy chappy the next morning. By Saturday (this was Thursday night), I had a small crop of spots on my jaw. Nothing too major, not like the ones I get from dairy, but enough for me to think "aha...", especially as I'd hardly eaten any bread all week. So keep the wheat intake to a minimum seems to be the trick.

On Saturday night we went to the British Community Association Christmas dinner. Turkey, sprouts, gravy, parsnips, stuffing... yum. Except I forgot to tell them that I can't eat milk and related products. The soup had cream in it, and the Christmas pud was served with brandy butter. I thought sod it, let's see what happens. Within 24 hours I had a spot on either side of my jaw. I think I accidentally ate some dairy on Monday too as another spot appeared. It was either dairy or too much sugary stuff (or both, there might be milk powder in baked beans...).

So as the reactions are pretty immediate, I'm fairly sure dairy is the biggest culprit, followed by gluten and sugar, although I have to eat something quite concentrated for either of those things to do me harm. Still best to try to avoid where possible. Thankfully most of the Christmas markets seem to have a low/no sugar punsch on, so not too much of a problem.

The bottom line is that I am feeling good about myself again. The Beard couldn't tell the difference, which I am putting down to him thinking I am beautiful no matter what, not that my skin still looks really bad! This seems to be corroborated by my colleague who said today that she'd noticed my skin was a lot better.

I don't have any before and after pictures, but here is a silly gif of me posing for a new work photo this week (this is something Android cameras now do automatically... I find it a little creepy!). Although I am wearing make up, it is nowhere near as much as I have previously!