Rosacea Cured with Vitamin A

[Jameo]

Dear all,

I've struggled with rosacea for approximately 15 years. I've tried many treatments and have finally found something that's completely cleared all rosacea symptoms. I am taking 25,000 IU of Vitamin A twice per day (once @ breakfast and once @ dinner). After doing this for one month my rosacea was gone.

My doctor told me he had success treating acne patients with vitamin A , so I gave this a try.

I'm using the following:
NOW Vitamin A - 25,000 IU from Fish LIver Oil

One additional point; I now can eat just about anything I want, but still find milk products can be a problem if I take too much.

I have read that high doses of vitamin A has some side effects for pregnant women, so make sure you read up on this;

[Mike T]

Be very carfull with taking more than the daily reccomended limit of any vitamin as it could affect the balance of minerals in the body.

Vitamin A overdose is particularily bad. The reccomended daily limit is around 5000UI. 25000UI is still considered low dosage (for the treatment of acne, rosacea) for short term use, but it is in the long term were the side effects from the improportional intake of one vitamin over others may show up.

Vitamin A overdose can lead to hairloss, dry skin, irritable bowel syndrome, athritis, degenerative muscles/bones, seb derm...to name a few.

The popular acne medication Accutane is a derivitive of Vitamin A. They both work to reduce the activity of the sebacious glands to eliminate acne. Problem is they are unbiased in there actions and seem to affect all proliferating cells within the body, in particular the more rapidly proliferating cells (such as the sebacious glands, and skin). That is why almost everyone taking Accutane gets dry skin. And that is why it is the closest thing to a cure for acne out there.

If you had to choose between Accutane and Vitamin A, Vitamin A would be the best of the worst.

If i were you i would keep cutting back the dosage, bit by bit, so that i could find the least amount of Vitamin A which will do the desired job.

I have taken Accutane and speak from personal experience.

Regards,

Mike

[skeecher78]

Please describe your symptoms.

[Aurelia]

Hi Jameo and welcome to our board

Thanks for posting about your good results with Vitamin A. It is wonderful to hear that you have at last succeeded in getting rid of your rosacea symptoms. However, more info would be helpful, as with skeecher's request to know what your symptoms were. Also, it would be good to know how long you have been free of symptoms. You wrote "After doing this for one month my rosacea was gone", but we don't know when that happened. Since rosacea is characterised by unpredictable periods of improvement and deterioration, often without any apparent cause, you will appreciate that how long you have now been symptom-free is a crucial bit of data to share.

I would also strongly endorse Mike's message about the dangers of megadoses of Vitamin A. Although unborn babies are the ones most at risk (of terrible deformities), Vitamin A certainly isn't only dangerous for pregnant women.

Anyone interested might perhaps like to take a look at the relevant fact sheet from the Office of Dietary Supplements, run by the US National Institutes of Health:
http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/vitamina.asp

That gives the daily Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) for vitamin A as 3,000 IU for men and 2,310 IU for most women, with Tolerable Upper Intake Levels (ULs) for retinol (the form found in animal liver, for example) as 10,000 IU for both men and women. Both are a heck of a lot higher than your twice-daily doses of 25,000 IU equalling 50,000 IU per day!

The MedlinePlus page on Vitamin A is much simpler and easier to read but is equally authoritative, being issued by the National Institutes of Health and the US National Library of Medicine. That says "Acute vitamin A poisoning usually occurs when an adult takes several hundred thousand IU. Symptoms of chronic vitamin A poisoning may occur in adults who regularly take more than 25,000 IU a day." That is half the quantity you have been taking, Jameo!
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency ... 002400.htm

Here's their recommendation: "The best way to get the daily requirement of essential vitamins is to eat a balanced diet that contains a variety of foods from the food guide pyramid." That is what we do in my family, getting our Vitamin A by eating lots of foods high in carotenoids. For example, we use white potatoes maybe only 3 or 4 times per year. Instead, we cook with orange-coloured vegetables such as carrots, sweet potatoes, yams or pumpkin almost every single day. Since that sounds boastful, I will admit that we don't eat dark green, leafy vegetables anywhere near as often as we should.

Kind regards,

Aurelia

[Jameo]

Hey folks,

Thx for the replies and concerns. This solution is working for me for now. I'm researching other options, but so far no side effects and I will monitor/research. As to my intake being > than the NIH daily amount; NIH condones all sorts of medicines which have side effects that are far more negative than anything I've found with the amounts of vitamin A.

Along with the vitamin A i have made some significant diet changes which helped lessen my rosacea but didn't completely solve. Diet changes are: very little caffeine (only from occasional dark choc , less sugar intake, less white flour intake, smaller meat portions, much greater portions of vegetables and fruits added to my diet. These did help and maybe lessened my rosacea symptoms by 25% . Adding the vitamin A completely wiped out the rosacea.

Regarding my symptoms, they were redness in my nose, cheeks, chin with pimples in the same area. At times the pimples on my nose were very large and difficult to manage. My redness / pimples were worsened by hot drinks, spicy foods, etc.. common rosacea triggers. I was never clear. I tried pretty much everything that's avail to treat rosacea over a 15 year period and never found a solution except for anti biotics. I didn't want to stay on anti biotics, so i went searching and accidentally found this solution. BTW, it took 2 - 4 weeks until I saw success with this treatment.

ON the comments for using a balanced diet to get the appropriate nutrients; i've found that good diet alone does not solve this problem. I'm assuming my diet is already good.. I believe it's better than most

Regarding the vit A overdose symptoms of hairloss, dry skin, irritable bowel syndrome, athritis, degenerative muscles/bones, seb derm...to name a few.
I've not noticed any of this, but I've not been on this treatment long enough yet. After approx 5 months of this treatment my skin is normal (not dry), full head of hair, I'm very active and don't notice any issues, and my digestion is normal. I've been working with a medical doctor on this treatment and I will get his take on this.


thx!

[skeecher78]

Thanks for this reply! It's very helpful. Did you also experience hot facial flushing/burning? These are the main symptoms that I'm trying to knock out.

[Mike T]

Your dosage is still low in comparasin to the standard Accutane amount so you may not experience these symptoms in the short term, or even in the long term. Hopefully.

Be sure to factor in your vitamin A intake from the food you eat.

All the best

Mike

[Jameo]

Mike,

thx for the reply. Since your initial message to me I've been searching high and low for Vit A info for side effects, impact of too much, etc., but I cannot find any research that gets into specifics. Did the side effects you mentioned come from accutane ?

thx

[Mike T]

There actually a fair bit of information out there. Maybe try Hypervitaminosis A (most likley spelt wrong but google should fix it up).

Accutane is from the same family as vitamin A. The side effects mentioned are shared by both. Accutane is just more potent than Vitamin A which makes it easier to overdose on.

Just keep an eye out for any of the symptoms mentioned before and cut back at any sign of them.

Regards,

Mike

[Jameo]

Hey folks,

Through some experimentation I've found that Salmon Oil 1000mg appears to have a similar impact.
I'm taking (1) 1000mg Salmon Oil capsule with each meal and my rosacea symptoms are still diminished or gone.

BTW, after doing research the Vitamin A from Fish Liver Oil can an adverse impact on your Vitamin D intake.
Vitamin D is closely connected to fighting cancer, so I do see this as a major downside of Vit A.
However, one potentially good solution for this is taking beta carotene which gets processed into your body as Vit A, but doesn't lessen your Vit D.

Info on Vit D is here:
www.vitamindcouncil.org