Skinfora ad: If she cut dairy and still breaks out, read this 👆

My daughter ate cleaner than anyone I know for two years, and she was the only one in our house with acne. No dairy, no sugar, no soda, and water all day. And I genuinely didn't understand why. Bridge: A dietitian found it in two weeks. My name is Sarah Martell, and I'm 41 with a fifteen-year-old daughter. For two years I tried to clear her acne, and I honestly thought I was helping her. When she was 13, it was just a few bumps on her forehead. I thought it was puberty, so I did what everyone does. We bought the CeraVe, the benzoyl peroxide and the salicylic pads. I even grabbed a probiotic from CVS, and that did nothing. By 14 it was all over her chin and her jaw. Every mom I talked to said the same thing. "Have you looked at her diet?" So I looked at her diet. I'd read that dairy was the biggest culprit, so that was the first thing to go. No milk and no cheese. She'd had yogurt every morning, so that went too. And a few weeks later her chin actually cleared up. I told everyone it was the milk, even the moms at pickup. I really thought we'd found it. Then it came back in the same spots. So I cut sugar. When that didn't do anything, I cut the soda and juice. After that I cut the bread. I learned to read every label in the grocery store. She started bringing her own lunch to school, and she drank water all day. She's honestly the healthiest eater I've ever met. And she was the only one in our house with acne. Her brother eats whatever he wants, and he's never had a pimple in his life. I stopped telling people what we'd tried after a while. I remember standing in our pantry one night, looking at those shelves. There was nothing left to take out. I'd done everything right, and I didn't know what else there was. So in the fall we went to a dermatologist. He looked at her for maybe four minutes, and I told him about the food. He said diet didn't have much to do with it, and he gave us a cream. The cream dried her out, and she kept breaking out in the same spots. In January we went back, and he looked at her chart before saying, "At this point, we should talk about Accutane." He said we'd start with the bloodwork in May, once her school year was nearly done. I told him we'd think about it. What scared me most was that I'd spent two years keeping everything bad out of her body. And now the next step was the strongest thing they make. A few weeks later her friend turned 16, and there was a party at their house. I picked her up at nine, and her friend's mom came out to the car with a plate. "She didn't touch her cake," she said. "I saved her a piece." My daughter took the plate and put it on the floor of the car. We drove for a while. "You could have had the cake, honey. One piece isn't going to do anything." "What's the point." She said it flat. "I did everything. I did everything you said." I didn't say anything, because she was right. "I don't care anymore," she said. "I'll just do the Accutane." She looked out the window the rest of the way home. I carried that plate inside and I stood in the kitchen holding it. She was 15, and she was scared of a piece of cake. And I was the one who taught her that. I threw it in the trash before she could see it. Then I went and stood in that pantry again, with the light off. Our family doctor saw her that February for her yearly checkup. He looked at her chart and then he looked at her. She'd lost eleven pounds since last year. I told him it was the diet, and that she eats really clean. He didn't love that, and he sent us to a dietitian. I almost didn't book it, because the last thing I needed was someone telling me to cut one more thing. Her name was Dana, and she asked us to keep a food diary for two weeks. My daughter wrote down every single thing she ate, and honestly I was proud of it. I handed it over like a report card. Dana went through it with a highlighter, and she added everything up on a sheet. She kept nodding at the vegetables and the fruit. "This is a really clean diet," she said. "You've worked hard on this." I almost cried, because nobody had ever said that. Then she turned the sheet around and put her finger on the last line. Fermented foods: 0. I didn't know what that meant. She looked at me and asked, "When did she last have yogurt?" "Two years ago," I said. "We cut dairy." She wrote that down. "Can you come back Thursday? Bring a notepad." I sat in the parking lot trying to figure out why that felt so bad. On Thursday my daughter stayed at school for a study group, and I went back on my own. I took out my notepad and sat down. "You were right about food," Dana said. "Food really does matter." She put the sheet in front of me and tapped the zero. "Every kid in her class is going through the same hormones. The difference is how her body handles them, and a lot of that happens in her gut. She's got good bacteria and bad bacteria in there, and the good ones help her body break those hormones down. When she has enough of them, her body keeps up. If she doesn't, it backs up. Then it comes out on her skin." I'd never once thought about her gut. "Those good ones have to come from somewhere," she said. "For generations, families ate them every day, in things like yogurt and sauerkraut. Now almost nothing a kid eats is still alive. Even the healthy stuff is cooked and packaged." I looked at the sheet with the zero on it. "And that yogurt was the only live food she had," I said. She nodded. "Cutting dairy can clear things up for a few weeks. But it took the one live food out, and her gut ran down from there." My stomach dropped. I thought about her eating that yogurt every morning at the counter. Then I saw myself taking it out of the fridge. I did that. I took away the one thing she had left. For two years I'd been starving her gut and calling it clean. Dana must have seen my face, because she said it before I could. "You did exactly what you were supposed to do. Everyone told you to cut dairy. That's what any good mom does." My eyes started to burn, and I looked down at my notepad. It took me a minute. "Is that why her brother never breaks out?" "He still eats yogurt and everything else that's alive." "So why did no one tell me?" "Everyone was looking at what she was eating. Nobody was looking at what was in her gut." I asked if I should just give her yogurt again. "It helps," she said. "But she's had none of it in her food for two years, and a cup of yogurt isn't going to fill that." I asked how she knew all this. "Because my daughter ate the same way," she said. "She was 16. I'm a dietitian, and I was the one who cut everything." She said the longer the bad ones stay, the harder they are to move. I told her about the probiotic. "We tried one from CVS," I said. "It did nothing." "What was on the label?" I didn't know. "Most of those are made for a grown-up's digestion. They've got 1 or 2 strains, and a strain is just one kind of good bacteria. She needs a lot more than that. There was a 12-week study on people with acne, in a dermatology journal. About half of the ones on a probiotic got better, and under a third did on the placebo." She told me to write down 3 things. At least 7 strains. At least 10 billion of each. Lactobacillus rhamnosus. She spelled that one out for me. "That last one's been studied on people with acne," she said. "In 12 weeks it brought down the hormone signal in their skin that sets off breakouts, by 32%." I asked her which one to get. "I don't sell anything, and I can't tell you what to buy." Then she stopped. "But I can tell you what my daughter took." She took my pen and wrote one more word under the three things. Skinfora. I sat in the car for a while with that notepad. I've bought so many things for this. I almost talked myself out of it, because I'd already spent two years being sure. But it had a 90-day money-back guarantee, so I looked it up right there. It had 7 strains, every one at 10 billion or more. That's 120 billion all together. And Lactobacillus rhamnosus was right there on the label. I didn't cancel anything. The May bloodwork was still on the calendar. That night I sat on the end of her bed and told her what Dana said. I told her it was never anything she ate. She didn't say anything for a while. "So I can have yogurt," she said. "You can have yogurt." The jar came a few days later, and I took it up to her room. "Two of these a day, with any drink. Don't skip." She looked at the jar and said okay. Nothing changed on her skin the first week. But she told me her stomach felt different. The second week was the same, and I caught myself looking at that May date. Around week three the sore ones on her chin didn't look as angry. I didn't say anything to her, because I didn't want to jinx it. By week four there were no new deep ones, for the first time in months. I came down one morning and she was at the counter with a yogurt. I went back upstairs for a minute. Then at week five a new one came up on her jaw, and I waited for it to turn into one of the deep ones. 4 days later it was gone. That had never happened before. She started eating lunch with her friends again, whatever they were having. Then May came. We went in anyway, because I wanted him to see her. He looked at her for a lot longer than four minutes, and all he said was, "Whatever you're doing, keep doing it." Nobody said Accutane. By week twelve her skin was clear. Not better. Not manageable. Clear. I'm not going to say it was a miracle, because it wasn't overnight and it wasn't magic. She still gets one before a big week, and some of those marks on her jaw aren't going anywhere. We went back to Dana that summer with a new food diary. She read through it and laughed. "She's eating like a teenager," she said. And in September there was another birthday at the same friend's house. I picked her up at nine, and she got in the car with a paper plate. "I saved you a piece," she said. That night I put a yogurt in the fridge for her, and I stood in the pantry with the light on. It's been eight months now. She takes it every day, and it's a thing that sits on the counter. I still have that sheet with the zero on it. I've told a few moms at pickup about it since. One of them went home and took the yogurt back out of the trash. If she hadn't lost that weight, nobody would have sent us to Dana. I'd still be reading labels, and she'd have started that bloodwork in May. So please, let me be the one who tells you. If you've cut the dairy, the sugar and the bread, and she's still breaking out, it was never her fault. And it was never yours. Right now she's probably skipping something she loves because of her skin. And the acne is still leaving marks. The longer it stays, the more likely it is to leave a scar. Looking back, everything we did took something away. This is the first thing we tried that was built to put enough back. I know Accutane is the scary part. If it's the right call for your kid, it's the right call. I'm not a doctor. It'll still be there. I'd just do this first. Here's what I wrote down that day. At least 7 strains. Most have 1 or 2. At least 10 billion of each. And Lactobacillus rhamnosus, the one studied on people with acne. The one I found was Skinfora. It has 7 strains, every one at 10 billion or more, and 120 billion all together. It's 2 capsules a day, with any drink. It isn't cheap, I'll be honest. They make it in small batches so every jar still has its full strength when it gets to your door. Right now the jar comes free with the first order, and shipping is free. And if her skin isn't clearer within 90 days, it's every cent back. So before you take away one more food, it doesn't hurt to help her gut first. ~ Sarah Martell, mom of a girl who used to be scared of cake EDIT: For everyone messaging me about what she wrote down, it's from the brand "Skinfora," and no, I didn't get it from the dietitian's office or Amazon. Instead of messaging everyone back individually, I just linked it below � https://skinfora.com/pages/skinfora-probiotic P.S. I don't fully get the science, but Dana said the longer they stay, the harder they are to move. So sooner is better than later. And with the 90-day money-back guarantee, you could take it for 89 days and still get your money back if nothing happens. P.P.S. And no, nobody pays me for any of this. There's no code, no discount, nothing in it for me. A dietitian told me the truth when she had no reason to, and I told her if it worked I'd pass it on. It worked.