Dr. Kathy Nguyen, ND

03/16/2022

We talk a lot about and see a lot of information about estrogen dominance, but what about progesterone dominance and acne?

Progesterone has many benefits. It supports fertility, immune health, stabilizes mood, protects the breasts, and is a natural diuretic preventing water retention.

But did you know that too progesterone much progesterone may also contribute to acne?

Like male hormones (e.g. testosterone), progesterone may stimulate the sebaceous glands in our skin, ramping up oil production. This clogs the pores and traps bacteria that may contribute to acne.

Vitex is a common herb found in a lot of PMS supplement formulas. It supports progesterone. If progesterone is the problem, then taking this herb may not help.

Additionally, if you take Vitex for too long, it may push things too far in the opposite direction and potentially play into acne as well.

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03/08/2022

In conventional care, treatments for acne tend to be limited, often involving topicals, birth control pills, and or Accutane.

However, acne can have many triggers, therefore treatment has to be multifaceted in order to increase the chance of treatment success.

How should address acne?

🌸Balance hormones

Too all of the ladies out there, when your male hormones are high, you’re basically like a teenage boy going trough puberty again, hence the acne breakouts. Not fun.

If your progesterone levels are in excess, it can stimulate the skin’s sebum gland, which may increase oil production, trap bacteria, and lead to acne.

🔥Address inflammation

Your skin is one of your main detox organs. If there is too much toxins and inflammation in the body, your body is going to try to get rid of it one way or another.

😰Manage stress

If you recall from my last posts, your stress hormone cortisol, comes from your female hormone progesterone.

Too much stress depletes progesterone, which leads to an imbalance between estrogen and progesterone, leading to estrogen dominance and possibly acne.

🍪Remove food triggers

I always tell patients, food like sugar and dairy, may not have been what caused acne to begin with, but it could be interfering with healing.

Research has demonstrated that diets high in sugar may increase the effects of insulin and IGF-1, which may affect acne severity.

03/01/2022

When I was 19 year old, I suffered from severe facial cystic acne.

I wish that I had taken pictures then, so that I can show people now, because it’s really hard for people to believe that I had severe acne given my current skin health.

I tried various topicals (e.g. salicylic acid, benzoyl peroxide, antibiotics) and orals (e.g. antibiotics, birth control pills), which only worked temporarily or not at all.

My parents also spent a lot of money on new emerging therapies (e.g. phototherapy), which were very expensive 10 years ago because they weren’t widely available. They didn’t work for me either.

Stress was a huge factor for me at the time, which I believe is what initiated the development of my acne.

How so?

👉🏼 Our stress hormone, cortisol, comes from our female hormone, progesterone.

👉🏼 Therefore, chronic stress may deplete progesterone in our body.

👉🏼 Progesterone helps balances estrogen, thus, depletions in progesterone may lead to estrogen dominance.

👉🏼 This may contribute to acne.

02/22/2022

Hey everyone, sorry I went AWOL for awhile. I definitely needed this break.

The end of 2021 was filled with happiness and tears. I got married, travelled to the East Cost in Canada, and went through some of my own health challenges which I’ll talk about later.

More importantly…

Today is 02.22.22 which falls on Tuesday this year, the second day of the week. That’s 02.02.22.22.

I know technically January 1st is the start of a New Year but I decided that the last 52 days has been a practice run for me.

For those of you who don’t know, 22 is an angel number and master number in numerology. It is a high vibration number and one of the most powerful numbers turning desires into reality. My husband and I were also both born on day 22 so this number means a lot to me.

I truly believe in practicing positivity and being grateful. It is a muscle that we have to flex everyday 💪 This allows us to attract abundance and manifest our dreams. It wasn’t until I truly believed in myself, my mind, my heart, and my abilities that things started happening for me.

At 2:22PM today, take a moment to yourself today to love, reflect, attract, and manifest ♥️

10/27/2021

Many women struggle with the same health concerns such as fatigue, irregular or heavy me**es, acne, and slow metabolism.

And women who seek medical attention for their health rarely get the resolution that they are looking for and their worries are often brushed off.

Women feel unheard.

Our healthcare system tends to look at female concerns as isolated conditions.

For example, if you struggle with low energy and/or weight gain, the thyroid is checked but you’re almost never asked about your period and stress.

And whether it be irregular periods, acne, mood swings and/or PMS, female hormones are often not tested despite the research showing how hormones can affect women’s health.

Stress hormones are almost always overlooked because stress is just considered normal and part of every day life.

The female hormone system is very complex. We need to address the body as a whole because the ovaries, adrenals, and thyroid are always communicating with one another.

Interested in learning more about women’s hormone health? DM me!

09/24/2021

Damn! That’s my husband! ♥️

09/23/2021

The normal reference range for ferritin (a marker of your iron stores) is typically 5-272 ug/L which is quite broad.⁠
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If you fall within this range, you may be considered normal despite experiencing signs of low iron such as:⁠
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☑️Low energy⁠
☑️Chronic fatigue⁠
☑️Hypothyroidism⁠
☑️Dry skin⁠
☑️Hair loss and hair thinning⁠
☑️Heavy me**es⁠
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Iron rich foods and/or iron supplementation is key if your levels are deficient but keep in mind that this is also not always the solution.⁠
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The question we must ask is, why is your iron low? Maybe your digestive functions isn’t allowing you to absorb iron? And if so, why is that?⁠
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09/22/2021

Iron is crucial for hormone health and it’s pretty hard for women to maintain their iron stores especially when they are menstruating each month.

Each time a woman gets her period, she is losing iron. Essentially, she spends all month building her iron stores by eating iron rich foods just to lose it all at the end of the month.

On top of that, women need more iron during pregnancy, labor, and breastfeeding. So if they start out on the lower end, they’re going to come out on the other side completely depleted!

The iron reference range on blood work can be quite broad and so women are constantly told that their iron stores are normal despite experiencing a long list of problems like the ones listed above.

We shouldn’t wait until women reach anemia in order to treat. We should be taking preventative measures to optimize women’s health.

09/17/2021

Who needs this reminder on the daily?

09/16/2021

I often see patients diagnosed with PCOS and advised to start birth control pills (which does not fix your periods by the way) without proper testing.

For example, sometimes I only see either DHEA or testosterone tested and not both. If one comes back normal, it is assumed that the other one is normal too.

However, this is not always the case as DHEA and testosterone have different origins. DHEA is made predominantly in the adrenals while testosterone is made in the ovaries.

They are two different organs and two different problems. Also, elevations in these hormones does not always mean PCOS either (this is another topic on its own).

The diagram above is a simplified illustration to help patients see that there are various types of PCOS.

There are many other factors to consider like pill induced PCOS, high LH:FSH ratio, androstenedione, inflammation, thyroid health and so on.

Comprehensive testing including checking hormones helps us get to the root of the hormone imbalance and determine which treatments are needed.

09/15/2021

In allopathic care (when you see your Doctor), hormone testing is often not performed because whether you have irregular periods, heavy periods, PCOS, acne, PMS and so on…

The treatment recommendations don’t really change. Most patients with hormone imbalance like the symptoms above are often recommended birth control pills.

In naturopathic medicine, there are so many vitamins, minerals, supplements and herbal treatments to pick from depending on which systems or hormones are affected.

The above illustration shows some of the treatments that I use in practice depending on what is going on with someone's hormones.

Treatments are almost always never isolated to one system. It's important to treat the person as a whole.

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09/10/2021