Blue lines under eyes and dry/bad skin

[Conan]

Hi,

Since puberty I've had bad/acne/dry skin and the common blue area on the nose-side of the eyes.

Any remedies, especially for the blue lines under the eyes? Together with me being prematurely bald it makes me look 15 years older than I am.


A few months ago I was eating a pound of spinach a day for several months, as it was cheap. It can't be a lack of spinach.

[soul food]

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php ... lly-tired/

circles under eyes
June 2, 2014 Karl Smallwood

Now, as you may or may not already know, the reason veins often look blue isn’t because the blood inside them is blue; it’s because your skin/subcutaneous tissue only lets blue/violet wavelengths of light pass through it. As a result, only blue light is reflected back and the veins look, well, bluish. (Veins often won’t appear blue if a person has darker or lighter skin. Rather, the veins tend to appear green or brown. On the other hand, people with extremely light skin, such as albinos, will typically have veins that show up as dark purple or dark red, more closely resembling the actual color of the blood running through the veins.)

It’s the exact same concept with the skin below your eyes. Those dark bluish circles are (usually) just the result of light being reflected back off of the blood vessels sitting just below the surface of that incredibly thin patch of skin. This is the same reason facial bruises are more prominent below or around the eyes; the thin skin just shows the blood from the ruptured blood vessels a little bit more clearly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qdwn2itsgg

acne

Published on Oct 24, 2014
MORE INFO: What we are eating that has worked for getting rid of our acne is a very low fat vegan diet. We were already eating pretty much the low fat diet of Dr. McDougall. And eating that we had our huge breakouts. After reading an article from Dr McDougall (which we're putting a link to below) we realized we needed to lose all added fats. We sometimes had soy food, like soy milk twice a day with oatmeal, or avocados/guacamole, or nuts like peanut butter. We stopped all those added fats that Dr. McDougall mentioned in his article, so we were eating a plant-based diet very low in added fats. This worked within 3 days for us when we had no new breakouts! Then over the weeks after, our skin became clearer and clearer as the old pimples receded and cleared up. There is a book called MAXIMUM WEIGHT LOSS DIET by Dr. McDougall which describes how to eat this way. We lost around 5 pounds each in the month after we started, but we but didn't want to, so we added a lot of calorie-dense dried fruit and fruit smoothies into our diet so we don't lose too much.

So here is the first article we read from Dr. McDougall about acne and diet: http://nealhendrickson.com/mcdougall/...

Here is a link to the book and specific program which we have followed to get rid of our acne for good: http://amzn.to/1z5n2IK

Again, that book is called the Maximum Weight Loss Diet Program book. This is not Dr. McDougall's regular program, but one that eliminates more fats like soy milk and olives.

The main this is to focus on eliminating fat. Obviously you want to avoid dairy products, milk, cheese, meat, eggs, nuts and so on, but also fake meats, fake cheese, soy milks, olives, hummus, avocado, nut butters. We will be posting the kinds of things we eat so that we don't have any more breakouts.

There is also a FREE program Dr. McDougall gives away with menus to eat this way, see: http://drmcdougall.com/health/educati...

But again remember, you can't have the higher fat things in his regular program, if you're like us, or else you will still have breakouts.

We eat a lot of potatoes and rice, beans and veggies, oatmeal, sometimes whole wheat or rice pasta, as well as fruit. We will be posting videos of what we eat to give more examples.

soul food

[nayasmom]

Sounds to me like you have a sensitivity to some food that you're eating a lot of. I would suggest trying the elimination diet for a couple of weeks and see if there's any improvement. When I eat any kind of tomato products I have tiny white breakouts on my face and scalp. If I eat a lot of tomato, I get a lot of them; if I eat a little tomato, I get a few of them.
You could be sensitive to sunlight. Or you could be sensitive to sun screen if you use it. What are you using to wash your face or hair? Do you shave? What do you use to shave? Where does your acne tend to congregate?
Do you drink plenty of water? ARe you drinking other forms of liquids like tea, coffee, beer, whatever? Are you eating lots of fruits?

Thinking out loud, here.

Robyn

[Conan]

>> Sounds to me like you have a sensitivity to some food that you're eating a lot of. <<

I think you're referring to the bad skin? The acne is now just the red spots from 15 years ago that still haven't faded. I rarely get new spots. I shower a few times a week and then just use nothing or a generic cheap substance with soap in it. I wet shave two or three times a week with the cheapest shaving foam the store has. The dry skin probably could be alleviated by using a skin product, but I'm too cheap for that at the moment - and am not convinced of its efficacy, and it is leaving my skin oily which I find ugly.

This has been going on for 20 years with me not consistently eating any one food. Now I don't eat out and just eat mainly rice, noodles, vegetables, nuts. I could go on an elimination diet but I'm thinking with the lack of feedback from my skin it would take years before I see any results. There are also so many confounding variables: the red spots that don't fade, the sun, my baseline bad skin, etc.

I think I am sensitive to sunlight. Perhaps the dermatologist has give me a cream for my acne when I was younger that caused that. Now when I go in the sun I just get red and don't really get a tan. I generally avoid the sun, but I am now living somewhere warm so exposure to the sun is unavoidable. I don't use sunscreen. I probably should.

I could forgo the nuts (and tofu?) and instead go for sweet potatoes/potatoes to quell the hunger that rice isn't able to quell. But I'm not expecting much from that.

I don't eat fruit at the moment. I don't drink anything other than water, consistently. I think I drink enough water, but I don't monitor that consistently.

Any thought on the blue lines under my eyes?

[nayasmom]

Ironically, the best thing you can do for dry skin is to lighten up on the fat in your diet. Are you consuming no more than 10% of your daily calories as fat? Also, perhaps invest in better quality cleansers, if you need them at all. You could do with just rinsing your face/scalp with water.
If you are sensitive to sunlight, screen or block won't help and in fact could make things worse if your skin reacts to the chemicals in the preparations. Wear a hat instead.
Read up on Dr. McDougall's elimination diet. It doesn't take years to find out you're sensitive to a food. If you don't try it, you'll never know if something you're eating is causing you grief. You have nothing to lose, really, by simply trying it.
Robyn

[Conan]

I already eat close to the elimination diet, save the nuts. I could cut out the noodles, tofu, soy sauce, hot peppers, white rice, and occasional oatmeal and raisins and I'd be there. Only irritating thing would be that the brown rice I can buy seems to need a minimum of 40 minutes cooking. And with my skin giving such slow feedback, I'm guessing I would need to try it for a couple of months instead of the one week McDougall writes.

I'm also surprised that potatoes aren't in the version of the elimination diet I read. Because it's in the nightshade family? I haven't eaten potatoes for 2 months though.

>>Ironically, the best thing you can do for dry skin is to lighten up on the fat in your diet.<<

Do you have sources for that?

http://nutritionfacts.org/video/flaxsee ... tive-skin/

[nayasmom]

>>Ironically, the best thing you can do for dry skin is to lighten up on the fat in your diet.<<

Do you have sources for that?

http://nutritionfacts.org/video/flaxsee ... tive-skin/

Use your own body for the source. Try it for a week or so. I used to have greasy skin and since I live in mountain desert climate, washing my face was a great way to dry out my skin... until a few hours when my skin would overproduce oil again. Since I switched to the McDougall diet and eliminated all fats (in my case because I had pancreatitis which is triggered by too much fat), my skin is normal again. I use undereye cream because I'm "of an age" but otherwise have no need for moisturizers or anything else on my face.
Just give it a try. It sounds to me like you're kind of addicted to fats, and that's certainly understandable, and it does sound logical to treat dry skin by eating more fats. Obviously, however, whatever you've been doing isn't working or you wouldn't be here asking for alternative solutions, right? So trust the process and give the low fat thing a shot. You've got nothing to lose, and brighter, healthier skin to gain possibly.

Robyn

[Conan]

I wasn't arguing for more fats with that link. That just came up when I searched for "dry skin" or similar when I searched on nutritionfacts.org.

I can easily go a while without fats and haven't seen it have an effect, although I often also don't look. I'll perhaps try the elimination diet soon and see if it has an effect. Thanks for your replies