Zinc

I've been taking it for four days and all I can say about it is how it improved my oiliness! No breakouts or purging, and no new sight of closed comedones (my WHOLE face is filled with them). The bad side here is you'll need some moisturizer, because my face got drier than usual. I hope this improvement continues though. Oh, BTW, the brand I have (my dad actually bought it) is Nature Made. I live in the Philippines and I recently took my senior high school at a public school (scorching hot > sweat and oil > closed comedones]. I'm giving it a four just because it has only been almost a week. Taking zinc supplements is kinda like taking accutane, but no disastrous side effects... well, an exception is when you don't balance your zinc levels with your copper levels. Other than that, all is fine. I think this improvement is relative; if you're not zinc deficient and you have acne, maybe this isn't the key to your problem.

I'm 23. I have been taking 250 mg of Zinc Gluconate for about 5 months. My acne condition has improved overall. The improvement has not been much, but still significant ( around 33% more clear ). Zinc is definitely worth trying if you have acne.

I've bought several zinc products from ebay (optizinc) and i've noticed improvement in the skin. I didn't break out as much and the inflammation went down. Zinc addresses the hormones in the body (acne is a result of a hormonal imbalance so it makes sense as to why the zinc would help. I would say try it out and find out for yourself. I've done my research and its good to do a lot of research and zinc does not have side effects from what i know of.

I made an account just to review this. I'll try to be as detailed as possible. I started getting acne when i was about 18. (now 24) I had never had any before that and then over the course of like two months it went from nothing to full fledged cystic acne. I get it all around my mouth, chin, and jawline. Almost nowhere else. At this time, I went vegetarian and then a year later vegan. It never occured to me that could affect anything. My doctor said to make sure to pop a B12 every now and then but never mentioned anything else. Also I went from no BC to Mirena that year. I tried everything except for accutane. Antibiotics (worked but knew this wouldn't be good for me long term), BP, SA (neither did anything), retin-a (took it for almost two years. i bought into that whole "it gets worse before it gets better" but it never did. in fact it destroyed my skin.). Switched facewash from cetephil to extremely diluted dr bronners (helped some, not a ton but helped my face not itch and be as dry), started washing my face with the dr bronners + distilled water (distilled water does help. again not a lot, but whenever i live somewhere with old pipes my face breaks out because i assume the minerals the water picks up through the pipes), OCM (this helped some too, at first it helped a lot, but then my acne kinda picked back up, although not as bad as when i was on retin-a). After trying OCM and realizing that while it wasnt perfect, it helped WAY more then retin-a, I decided to look into more "natural" things. I looked up things that actually had been studied to have an affect and one of the first things that came up was Zinc. At first i started taking it jsut to see what happened, but as i did more research i realized i was probably very deficient since im vegan and have been for years. I didn't have the white spots on my nails but i had hang nails all the time on every single finger. Now for the timeline: Feb 7--started taking 15mg of zinc picolinate (thorne brand) once a day March 7--saw no change. I was willing to be patient because all the studies seemed to be over about three months, but when i looked it up i realized the studies were based off of 30mgs so i thought about uping to that. but then i read that vegans can be highly deficient so...... March 8--started taking 100mg of zinc picolinate (blue bonnet brand) a day--50mg at lunch and 50mg at dinner. make sure you dont take it with any other medicine ( i take my antidepressent in the morning to avoid interference) March 16--started to see a difference--no new ones, current ones seemed to be shrinking March 19--finally at the point i didnt HAVE to wear make up. decided to cut down since it was clearing up and i know that long term, high doses arent good. Cut back to 50mg March 26--doing better. not perfect, but way way way better. got rid of all my blackheads. April 19--great! not perfect, but im okay with that. also i think if im truly deficient it may take my body a long time to catch up. cut back to 15mg just for maintence. So thats pretty much it. Hopefully i covered everything. Id say it cleared my acne by about 70%. My routine is: nothing in the morning, try to avoid face make up if possible. zinc at dinner. Wash face with olive or almond oil every other night (dr bronners unscented the other night, extremely diluted with distilled water) and rinse with distilled water. on occasion (like twice a month) i exfoliate with baking soda and olive oil and rinse, then use ACV after. but really the zinc is the number 1 thing. just wanted to be thorough cause i know how much it helps.

I like taking zinc tablets for my seborrheic dermatitis. It has anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial properties. Many of the shampoos also contain zinc and they work for treating sebderm. I think the most important thing zinc does is to reduce inflammation of the skin cells. I know I don't get enough zinc in my food on a daily basis so I supplement with a vitamin pill.

I was taking 60mg of zinc daily and it did help quite a bit but I was still getting break outs regularly, just not as bad

I started off with a 50mg daily supplement by the brand "Sundown Naturals" labeled Zinc 50 mg (As a Zinc Gluconate) Taking the entire 50mg pill for the first week daily with lunch. I'd say the whole pill daily is a bit much so on the second week I split the pill into two pieces. After the first week the black heads on my nose and cheeks are almost gone, the pimples on my chin and around my jawline have completely vanished along with any white heads on my forehead and anywhere else on my face. I've noticed something interesting since taking this supplement... I sleep very deep Zzz Also, food and drinks taste very intense too. I'm 30 years of age and have had problems with acne and oily skin my entire life, I can't believe this actually worked. Check with a doctor before taking this supplement, if you're not suffering from a Zinc deficiency than you'll want to take the lowest mg possible and possibly take this along with a low mg of copper.

i was tired of doing 3 step topical treatments twice a day. i guess im kind of lazy. lol and i also really wanted to get rid of my acne from the inside out because i have back acne too and im embarrassed to wear anything sleeveless. i take prescription meds (not for acne) in the AM and PM so i just put the zinc pills in each daily slot of my pill organizer so i never forget to take them. i really didnt think it would work cause my acne is STUBBORN but after about 5-7 days no big pimples showed up, my old acne started going away, and ive only gotten like 2-3 new small pimples instead of the usual 10ish new pimples after a period of 5-7 days. my complexion even looks different somehow. in a good way of coarse. ive been taking 100mgs of nature valleys zinc everyday. cheap stuff you can get at freakin walmart. 50mgs in the morning and 50mgs at night i doubled the dose that the directions said since im using it specifically for acne and not as an every day health supplement. i can only imagine it getting better from here! i just cant believe its working after just a week! if i can keep forcing myself to do a three step acne system at least once a day, preferably at night because sleeping right after treating my skin makes the results to be alot better in the morning, then combining the two will hopefully clear up my skin 80%-90% in a couple weeks. im even considering adding another 50mg zinc pill to see if it will work faster/better. im just so excited that my complexion is clearing up so fast! i just hope this doesnt backfire on me. i recommend this to EVERYONE! if it doesnt work for you then you should just continue to take the zinc till the bottle is empty cause zinc is good for you anyways. oh and the reason i gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is because it does cause a tad bit of nausea if you dont take it with a good amount of food in your stomach.