Quote from Deleted user on July 3, 2024, 4:41 pm

Hi Griffin,

Glad you made it.  The whole grain and bean thing is not necessarily the way to go.  Some do way better with white rice and white flour.  It is usually more important to find uncontaminated or less contaminated and or ways to decontaminate sources.  Rice for example is mostly arsenic poisoned in varying degrees.  Much of it here is grown on old cotton fields.  Soaking and rinsing with charcoal before and after cooking does amazing good.  

There are plenty of ways to improve.  Some require slowing down the effort to crank liver into dumping toxins and some require speeding up colon and other systems at excreting toxins the liver dumps out.  A few people try to slow down the liver's dumping out of toxins.  

Looks like you are well on your way. 

Questions:

How are you pooping?  Frequency?  Difficulty?  Volume?  

Are you or have you tried topical zinc, magnesium, potassium, nicotinic acid or charcoal?

Have you looked at Garrett Smith's site, youtube livestreams or twitter account?

nutritiondetective.com

https://www.youtube.com/@NutritionDetective    

@nutridetect on twitter

Quote from Griffin on July 6, 2024, 6:59 am

Hey Joe,

Appreciate the feedback.  So far I have definitely found that I do best with white rice than any other grain.  I have some data that suggests the Lundberg brand of white rice is very low in arsenic, but I also soak it in water/activated charcoal to be safe.  The beans may or may not be working for my skin right now.  Sometimes its hard to determine if a food is directly triggering my flare ups or its some type of detox reaction. Will continue to experiment with beans as I do think they can be a beneficial source of fiber and carbs.   

My bowel movements have improved somewhat over the last year, with more noticed progress since going low vitamin A.  For the most part I have 1 bowel movement a day now.  I still struggle with loose stools occasionally and a type of constipation where I cant fully empty my bowels.  Another thing I have not been able to fix is floating stools.  I have tried every digestive aid supplement, but nothing has fixed this issue.  I think it may be trapped gas that is causing them to float.  My digestion is also hit or miss some days.  I will occasionally get hit with stomach gurgling and gas after meals.  

I have not tried any topical supplements as of now.  I try and avoid putting any type of lotions or creams on my skin as it tends to make me break out.  My current supplements are ND keystone minerals 2-3 times per week, 150 mg benfothiamine 2-3 times per week, 1 scoop of sunfiber per day, 1/2 teaspoon activated charcoal 1-2 times per day, 200 mg magnesium glycinate before bed each night.  I supplement with potassium by mixing regular salt with potassium chloride powder.  I also tried taking lactoferrin, but this gave me brutal insomnia.  It actually made significant improvements in my digestion and bowel movements, but every time I took it I could not sleep that night.  I would get this reaction at doses as low as 60 mg.  

I did join the LVL program a few months ago. Dr Smith has a lot of valuable information on there that was helpful in getting started.  I've noticed there are some differing opinions over hear and wanted to see if anyone had experience using the low vitamin A diet to treat cystic acne.  I do have some disagreements with statements made by Dr Smith, but overall I think his message is helpful in regards to lowering vitamin A intake.  

Quote from Joe2 on August 16, 2025, 3:36 pm

Quote from Griffin on July 3, 2024, 2:41 pm

Hey everyone,

I recently found the low vitamin A community and have been giving the diet a try since April.  The main health issues I have been struggling with are cystic acne and IBS symptoms (gas, stomach pain, constipation, loose stools).  The acne has been my achilles heal since I hit puberty.  Now that I am 30 it has been close to 15 years of fighting this issue.  Unfortunately I was put on a course of accutane when I was 19.  This actually did give me clear skin for a couple of years in college, but that was short lived.  When the acne came back it was much more aggressive in the form of large cystic boils all over body.  This was around the time I started dealing with digestive issues as well. 

I initially turned towards doctors when the acne came back, but they were little help.  Thankfully I was smart enough to reject a second round of accutane.  In 2018 I started the paleo diet to see if it would help with skin and digestive issues.  The following year I moved towards the AIP diet.  My skin was continuing to get worse the more I tried to eat healthy.  Eventually I decided to give carnivore a try after hearing the success stories.  Unfortunately this was at the height of the nose to tail movement and I started this diet by eating a pound of liver a week for the first year.  Shocker, but this did not produce a good health outcome.  From 2020-2024 I tried different versions of animal based diets, but always kept some form of high vitamin A food in diet.  Ex: beef liver, cod liver, ghee, carrots, sweet potatoes, mangoes, oranges, avocado. The last year I was basically mimicking Paul Saladinos diet.  

In march of this year I read Grants first e book and it connected a lot of dots for me.  Im not sure if vitamin A toxicity  is my only issue, but it makes a compelling case for this type of skin inflammation.  I do believe I have been dealing with oxalate toxicity as well.  During the AIP years I was eating spinach smoothies and sweet potatoes daily.  Both these toxicities seem to have a lot of parallels. 

The last four months I have been experimenting with different versions of the low vitamin A diet.  It has been difficult to find which foods work for me, but I have definitely seen some progress with skin issues.  My digestion is still struggling, as I am still dealing with lots of gas and loose stools.  My current diet is muscle meat(beef, lamb, bison, chicken), white rice, apples, parsnips, cauliflower and small amounts of beans.  Unfortunately it seems the beans are making my skin worse so I may have to give up on those.  I supplement with activated charcoal and sun fiber so hopefully that is enough to help transport vitamin A out of body along with the other plant foods I am still eating.  I also supplement with benfothiamine 3 times a week to make sure Im not running into b1 issues from the white rice.  I work construction and have found the apples and white rice to be helpful sources of energy during the day.  

I really wish I had found Grants work sooner, but I am prepared for a long road to try and recover my skin and digestive health.  I am open to any suggestions and feedback from those of you more experienced with this diet.  Thanks again to Grant for creating this forum to help those of us that are desperate for answers.  

Hey @griffin

Have you seen this thread yet?  Given what we are working over on topics like calcium deficiencies, supplements, their binding agents, balancing both binding agents and supplements, food, oxalates and caclium, I think this might be the topic you, @hope tipton and I were trying to figure out with tie ins between calcium and cystic acne.  

Quote from Joe2 on August 16, 2025, 3:37 pm

I started getting boils again on legs along with some other symptoms I got in the '80's and 90's.  Started eating a food I ate back then during my lacto ovo years.