My Acne Story — My Personal Journey

My story has been shaped by many detours, intense experiences, and a long search for answers. From puberty well into my twenties, acne was a daily companion — with all the physical and emotional challenges that come with it.

Over the years, I tried, hoped, discarded, and kept searching. Only through intensive research and honest reflection did I finally recognize the real trigger of my skin problems — and found my path toward holistic health.

Everyone said it would pass — but my acne stayed

When I entered puberty, I got more and more pimples and my acne developed into a long-term problem. I spent hours focusing on my skin, squeezing pimples and trying different creams that only dried my skin out. To cover the red spots on my face, I used concealer sticks. I felt ashamed of my skin and was very insecure. During this time, I hardly took any photos and didn’t find myself beautiful.

People around me often told me my acne would disappear on its own after puberty and that I should simply wait. But that didn’t happen, and I continued to have skin problems afterward. I no longer wanted to constantly fight with my skin and looked for a simple solution that would bring quick results.

The pill as a supposed solution

Many girls in my class were already taking the pill and — unlike me — had no skin problems. So I also made an appointment with my gynecologist to get a prescription for the pill. It was quick and uncomplicated. Not many questions were asked, and I simply received a prescription.

At first, I noticed that my skin calmed down and eventually became clear. I took the pill for several years, but I felt increasingly less connected to my body. It also didn’t feel right to take medication every day, and over time I became aware that fundamental questions about possible causes of my acne were not really being clarified.

What worried me most about the long-term use of the pill were two points I could not ignore: first, the unwanted hormonal side effects such as water retention and weight gain. And the second concern was that the acne would return once I stopped taking the pill.

At some point, I decided to stop taking the pill to see what would happen. As expected, the acne returned and was worse than ever before. The problem clearly remained and was unresolved. Even long after puberty, my skin continued to trouble me, which worried me even more. For me, that was the moment when I began to search more intensively for other ways.

The turning point: When nutrition suddenly played a role

During a phase when my skin was particularly unsettled, I spoke with a dermatologist who recommended that I try avoiding white flour, sugar, and dairy products. For the first time, I became aware that my diet might play a role.

That was interesting and at the same time frightening. White flour, sugar, and dairy products were ingredients in many foods I loved at the time. Especially cheese — I didn’t want to give it up. I knew it would be difficult, but since I didn’t know what else to do at that point, I decided to try.

I made a commitment to be disciplined in the coming weeks and leave out these foods for several weeks to observe how the avoidance would affect my skin. While searching for recipes without white flour, sugar, and dairy products, I came across the Paleo diet, also called the Stone Age diet. This way of eating focuses on natural and unprocessed foods with plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables as well as daily consumption of meat and fish.

Paleo strictly excludes highly processed foods such as sugar, white flour, and dairy products. That’s why the Paleo diet seemed like a good fit for me. I followed the Stone Age diet consistently for several months and noticed clear changes: my acne improved significantly and almost disappeared. I also lost five kilos, which felt pleasant to me. I felt like I had reached my goal and was happy. Overall, I ate this way for almost two years.

Daily meat consumption didn’t feel right to me

Despite the positive changes in my skin, I increasingly felt that daily meat consumption was not good for me in the long term. I noticed that I had little energy, hardly any desire to exercise, and I began to question whether this way of eating really suited me.

Of course, there can be many reasons for that. But at the time, I felt that my lack of drive had more to do with my diet than with my mental state or any other reason. That’s why, despite the improvements in my skin, I had doubts about whether the Paleo diet was the right choice for me in the long term. At the same time, I realized that my diet had a huge influence on my skin and my overall well-being.

These thoughts led me to continue exploring nutrition and to become more open to trying new approaches. I began to search for scientific evidence for the Stone Age diet and the Paleo diet, but unfortunately I found none, which made me feel uncertain.

A conversation that deeply unsettled me

One day, I had an overnight guest through Airbnb who had come to Berlin for a conference and worked in cancer research. The topic immediately interested me because cancer had played a major role in my family and had concerned me for a long time.

My grandfather had prostate cancer and later died of leukemia. My grandmother developed breast cancer twice and only narrowly survived lymphatic cancer. These experiences shaped me and triggered a deep fear early on that I might one day become seriously ill myself.

That’s why I asked him very directly what he thought one could do to keep one’s personal risk as low as possible.

He explained to me that diet is generally considered a possible influencing factor on health and that many experts recommend reducing the consumption of red meat.

This conversation affected me unexpectedly strongly. At that time, as part of my Paleo diet, I was eating meat almost daily and began to wonder whether I might be harming my body in the long term.

Suddenly I found myself in an inner conflict: on the one hand, my skin had improved, but on the other hand, the thought scared me that I might be doing something that could negatively affect my health in the long run.

This fear felt very real to me because I always had the illness stories in my family in the back of my mind. I wanted to do everything I could to stay as healthy as possible, and so I began to question my diet even more.

I started an experiment with fruits and vegetables

After the conversation with the cancer researcher, I couldn’t stop thinking about fundamentally rethinking my diet once again. I wanted to know how my body would feel if I completely avoided animal products for a period of time. Without big expectations, I decided to eat only fruits and vegetables for one week and simply observe what would happen.

I didn’t have a concrete hypothesis and didn’t want to prove anything to myself. Rather, it was about perceiving my body more consciously and finding out how it would react to this change.

After just a few days, I noticed a new sense of lightness and felt that I had more energy. My body felt different than before — somehow clearer and lighter. This experience surprised me very much and made me curious at the same time.

At the same time, however, something happened that I had not expected: my skin condition worsened noticeably and I got more pimples again, so much so that even my colleagues at work commented on it. This development made me very uncertain because I had hoped that my skin would also improve.

I found myself in an inner conflict. On the one hand, I felt more physically energized than before, but on the other hand, my skin worried me. I wondered whether I should continue down this path anyway or whether I should return to my previous way of eating.

The positive changes in how my body felt gave me the courage to continue. At the same time, I felt unsure and didn’t know whether I was on the right path.

During this time, I began to reflect more deeply on how complex the body is and that changes don’t always move in the direction one expects right away. This phase was characterized by curiosity, hope, and at the same time doubt.

Looking back, this experiment was an important step for me because it showed me how strongly nutrition can influence how my body feels — even if not all changes were as I had wished.

Detox for improved skin

At that time, I was firmly convinced that my blemished skin was connected to a “toxic” body and that I needed to cleanse my body in order to improve my skin condition. I immersed myself deeply in the topic of detoxification and felt that this might be the key for me.

I read many naturopathic books and blogs and repeatedly came across the idea that skin reactions can be seen as a sign that the body is beginning to cleanse itself.

However, I didn’t really know what detoxification meant in terms of how long or how short the symptoms would last. How long should I continue the diet in order to achieve the desired results? Would a few weeks be enough, or should I continue the “detox” for several years in order to reach deeper levels of the body, as many bloggers and YouTubers recommended?

New life energy through a changed diet

What was happening in my body both shocked and fascinated me at the same time. Above all, I was excited about the new energy that I felt flowing through my body. I wanted to give the experiment a real chance. My goal was to find out whether I could achieve long-term, sustainable success for both my skin and my overall health with this way of eating. That’s why I wanted to continue my fast with fruits and vegetables.

In the following weeks, my headaches disappeared and my skin improved again. However, the new lightness and life energy remained. I also continued to lose weight, even though I ate large amounts of fruits and vegetables. This was especially encouraging because over the years I had steadily gained weight.

After about two months, my weight stabilized and I reached a weight at which I felt energetic, fit, and beautiful. I had lost a total of about ten kilos in two months. The fact that I had lost so much weight so quickly worried the people around me very much. But because of the constant energy I felt in my body, I was confident that everything was okay.

At that time, I was convinced that my body was in the process of cleansing itself and that these symptoms could be a sign that something was changing. At the same time, this phase was also exhausting and emotionally challenging.

Looking back, I cannot say with certainty what exactly caused these symptoms. For me, however, it felt like an intense adjustment process.

Over time, the desire grew within me to eat a permanently plant-based diet, as I also began to engage with topics such as sustainability and animal welfare. At the same time, I noticed that my skin condition was no longer as stable as before, which made me feel uncertain.

Between hope and doubt

After I had already eaten a purely plant-based diet for over a year, I now wanted to switch to a raw vegan diet. At that time, I was still firmly convinced that I needed to cleanse my body.

I sometimes ate very large amounts of fruit, often several bananas a day, and let myself be inspired by various approaches that I found in books and on the internet. I also incorporated many avocados, nuts, tomatoes, and foods that I had hardly eaten before, such as algae.

I hoped to provide my body with as many nutrients as possible and carefully observed how I felt. At the same time, I tried various measures to support my gut health, including regular fasting, celery juice cleanses, gut protocols, and homemade fermented foods such as sauerkraut.

This phase was characterized by great hope, but also by inner conflict. On the one hand, I very much wanted to believe that I was on the right path, but on the other hand, my skin sometimes became noticeably more unsettled, which made me very uncertain.

Within this way of eating, I continued to experiment and tried different variations. At times, I reduced certain foods or adjusted my diet in order to observe how this affected my well-being.

Looking back, this time was an intense learning process, characterized by a lot of experimentation, self-observation, and the strong desire to find my own path. Whether I was actually detoxing or whether my body was simply reacting to the dietary change, I cannot say with certainty today.

A new idea that changed everything

In the summer of 2019, my husband and I visited my in-laws in Canada. My mother-in-law had worked as a nutritionist for many years, and we had in-depth conversations about my experiences so far.

After I told her about my many experiments, she gave me a book about food intolerances. I began reading it and for the first time felt that I was discovering a completely new perspective.

In the chapter about histamine, I recognized many foods that I had been eating regularly at the time. This moment felt both shocking and relieving because I felt that I might be recognizing a possible personal connection.

Histamine as a possible trigger

I decided to avoid foods high in histamine for a few weeks in order to observe how my body would react. My motivation was very strong because I wanted to understand whether this approach could play a role for me personally.

After just a few days, I had the impression that my skin calmed down significantly. With each passing week, my skin condition became clearer until my skin finally felt completely clear to me.

For me, this felt like an enormous turning point. After all those years of searching, I felt great relief and had the feeling that I finally understood my body better.

Here I show a picture from that time when my skin improved significantly after switching to a low-histamine diet.

A feeling of peace

I still remember clearly the feeling of calm and joy during that time. It was the first time in many years that I truly felt comfortable in my own skin.

This experience shaped me deeply and showed me how individual one’s own path can be. At the same time, I became aware that every body reacts differently and that my experiences cannot be transferred to others.

From then on, I continued to eat mostly plant-based and paid particular attention to which foods personally felt good for me. I began trying out new recipes and shaping my daily life more consciously.

This entire process became the inspiration for this book because I understood how important it can be to get to know your own body and to listen to your own signals.

My further path with histamine intolerance

However, my story was not over yet. Since I did not want to restrict myself so strongly forever, I began to research more intensively. I wanted to better understand which factors could personally be connected to my histamine intolerance. One possible approach was a nutrient deficiency. A blood test eventually showed that I had a significant magnesium deficiency.

In addition, I had my gut flora examined through a stool analysis at an independent laboratory. It was found that I had a candida colonization — a possible factor that could be related to my symptoms. The analysis also showed a deficiency of beneficial gut bacteria.

As a result, I decided, with the support of a gut health expert, to implement various measures, including targeted treatment as well as a gut restoration protocol to support my well-being.

During this process, I also became aware of how strongly stress could influence my symptoms. I therefore began to notice stress more consciously in all areas of my life and to actively reduce it.

Today I can eat everything again and no longer need to follow a low-histamine diet. My skin has remained stable since then, which is a great relief for me personally.

I share these experiences because they are an important part of my journey, while at the same time I know that every body reacts differently.

Warm regards
Nicole