DISCLAIMER: I am not a licensed healthcare professional. These recommendations are all just based off my personal experience.
Hi guys i wanted to make a video about my spironolactone experience just because every week i would get at least five people you know dm’ing me about my experience the side effects when i saw results they just wanted to hear from me about my experience because even when i started there wasn’t that much information online about people’s personal experiences from a
Locked tone about their side effects how it worked for them so that’s why i wanted to make this video for you guys i’m going to be looking through my messages to see the most commonly asked questions about spironolactone use what is spironolactone so spironolactone is used normally for heart failure it’s a diuretic meaning it’s supposed to release the fluid that
Accumulates within your body because your part your heart doesn’t pump effectively spironolactone is actually prescribed for patients with heart failure to excrete that fluid buildup however um the way it works is it’s an androgen inhibitor so it blocks the effect of androgens your your sex hormones so for females that’s estrogen for males that’s testosterone
Testosterone actually promotes acne production um and as females we do have some circulating testosterone within our system but some females have more testosterone than others which is um which is quite common so that’s why a lot of females actually get acne hormonal acne around their chin and jawline area hormonal acne is usually seen around your jawline your
Chin your t-zone even around your contour areas and i would also get blackheads on my nose it was really bad it was like pustules and welts that like stuck out actually hormonal acne is quite treatable spironolactone helps with reducing the amount of blemishes and breakouts i get and it also helps with controlling the oil production of my face so before taking
Spironolactone i would have to blot my skin like every 20 to 30 minutes i would need to constantly oil blot and if i don’t oil blot it looks like i just soaked my face in a drenching soaking greasy oily pizza so yeah story of my life the top two benefits of spring latte was reducing the hormonal acne breakout that breakouts on my chin jaw forehead t-zone even my
Contour line right here and reducing the oil production on my skin i know people like read about spironolactone online and they’re like okay it’s a diuretic is that safe for me it is used as a hormonal acne treatment method as an off-label use so its primary use is to as is a diuretic to release fluid but its off-label use is for hormonal acne one side effect of
Sporonolactone is it reduces blood pressure that’s why before your doctor or nurse practitioner or whoever your provider is before they prescribe spironolactone they usually have to check a number of things um to deem whether spironolactone is safe for you and that is number one you check your blood pressure they check if you have any underlying health conditions
They ask you based off your health history another thing is they ask you if you get frequent dizziness or lightheadedness and if so um usually they would steer away from spironolactone somebody messaging me about they took spironolactone um 50 milligrams she felt pressure in her head she got unsteady on her feet she felt um lightheaded and dizzy and foggy and
That is because spironolactones excrete sodium from your body i just gave her some advice you know maybe to drink more water or are you feeling lightheaded or dizzy because of dehydration that could be what a reason and making sure you have enough sodium in your diet because um ceramilactin does uh excrete sodium from your from your kidneys so um maybe that’s why
And if you have reduced sodium you get frequent lightheaded and dizziness commonly asked question about sperm lactone use is whether your skin gets worse before it gets better so i was prescribed spironolactone 50 milligrams to take one tablet every day i am currently on my month nine of spironolactone use and it took me i would say until the until the third
Month in the middle of the third month i started to see results i did have to tell myself to stick with it for for three months because that’s what they the the provider said a lot of people don’t stick with the medication because they they don’t see results in like one month or two months of being on medication this medication you won’t see the full outcome
And result until the third or fourth month rate for some people and that’s why whenever the people message me on instagram saying you know i’m on my second month i’m on my first month um but i’m not seeing the results i want to see i’m actually like breaking out more i just kind of give them some some reassurance that you’re only on your first month or your
Second month the medication does take a while for it to kick in for you to see effects so maybe trying to stick through it for the third month maybe maybe after the third or fourth month deciding whether it works for you skin get worse before it got better uh yes and how long does it take for you for you to see results three and a half months so my skin did have
A purging purging um period which is when your skin gets worse before it gets better your skin sheds in layers so this is the most deep this is the most external so when blackheads or blemishes form they start in the deep layer that’s why they have to kind of get pushed out your new skin grows underneath the bad skin so it actually gets pushed up up up so this
Is outside it gets pushed up until it reaches the external barrier and then that’s when you see like your blemishes and your blackheads all coming out like all of a sudden and you’re like well i’m on this medication is my scene supposed to be better why am i breaking out more it’s because it that’s the purging where the good skin is trying to get pushed out so it
Has to release the bad skin so that’s the easiest way to describe it some people experience worse purging than others i really had to give myself another month or two for me to see the effects so the purging period lasted like let’s say a month and then after that it got a lot better like um basically my blemishes that were underneath my skin like kind of crusted
And like peeled off your skin does go through a purging period and it’s normal and after let’s say the third month it should you shouldn’t experience that bad of purging the intensity of purging should actually reduce and then that’s when there’s a period like a threshold when you start to see clear skin after the purging period around your three and a half four
Month four month mark we discussed the safety of the medication but now what are the side effects now that you’re on spironolactone 50 milligrams nightly this might be a little personal but i’m all open here um some side effects i feel when i’m on med on sprint a lot of 50 milligrams around the time of the month around my period my breasts do get tender like
More tender than normal and i do feel like they got bigger don’t get that confused with weight gain because um i live a pretty active lifestyle but at the same time we’re in quarantine so there might just be some like factors here that may come in play but i would say my breasts do feel a lot more tender especially around the time of the month my nipples do
Feel more sore when my period comes you know oh another big thing is i do get my period twice a month sometimes so so two out of the nine months i was on this medication i got my period twice in one month not that bad considering i actually expected me to get my period twice more it has never really bothered me the months where i would get my period twice the
First time it would be really heavy and then the second time my period comes back it would be really light and it would just go away in four days whereas when it’s heavy like it’s just the worst it’s like waterfall but um other than that i didn’t experience weight gain that’s actually not a common side effect actually there’s a number of side effects i still
Haven’t touched on spinalactin is a diuretic and it does excrete more fluid and more water and more sodium from your bodies that means you pee more often that is true i think for the first two weeks i noticed myself running to the bathroom more but then after a while like you just get used to it so your body kind of notices that and um over a while that doesn’t
Happen anymore so i think i only saw myself peeing more often first two to four weeks and then actually like it kind of became my new normal so a lot of people talked about splitting the medication in half so i was prescribed 50 milligrams i know some providers like to prescribe 100 milligrams from the beginning which kind of shocks me because 100 milligrams
Is actually a lot and usually with this kind of medication you want to start low and go slow so you want to actually start with the lower dosage and then kind of see how it works for you and then work your way up to a higher dosage i know some people are scared of weight gain or they’re scared of the menstrual regularities that come with taking spironolactone so
They like to split the pill in half or their their doctor provider tells them to split their pill in half and see how it works for them which is which is okay like splitting pills in half is a common practice if you’re really scared of the side effects i would i would split the pill in half and see how it works for you after splitting the pill in half if you
See the benefits then i would work your way up towards the normal dosage you were prescribed from the beginning if you ever talk about spironolactone with your provider i would highly highly highly suggest you to talk about trinomialing with your provider as well because these two are like a match made they prescribe me this treat known topical cream which is
They want me to apply this every night before i go to bed tretinoin is just a topical it’s a retinol it’s retinoid so it has vitamin a properties so vitamin a is a antioxidant it rejuvenates skin makes it look smoother the number one improvement of my skin due to tretinoin use was it reduced the size of my pores it reduced the size of my pores and when your
Pore size reduces it gives you the look of baby skin after using tretinoin every day um for nine months now this is what helps me with reducing pore size and just the overall complexion and smoothness of my skin some side effects of tretinoin are it actually dried out my skin the first month of using it i would get weird like crustiness around my lips so where
I would put this around like just honestly everywhere around my face i just started out using just a little pea size amount and then dab that around my whole face a really thin layer a little goes a long way and i started noticing my skin actually shedding like i would get crusties here and there around my lips and then around my under eyes and then i like
Actually never experienced dry skin i’m like i normally have oily skin why am i getting crusties why am i experiencing dry skin all of a sudden and then i talked to my provider she said yeah that’s a common side effect of no one so if what you can do is you can you can use this every other night instead of every every night um and see how that works for you so
I do what she said i use this every other night but i would still get the i would still get the dryness with tretinoin the goal is to use this every night after additional month of using this every night i started to notice my pores getting smaller my skin actually stopped getting crusty like i actually saw a lot of beneficial results um and the results that i
Wanted to see by using tretinoin i had a love hate relationship with this but now i completely love this thing without tretinoin i don’t think spironolactone would would make any difference and then they also prescribed me clindamycin benzoyl peroxide benzoyl peroxide is a common ingredient found in a lot of your face washes they want me to apply this in the
Morning as needed so not every morning but just whenever you experience more breakouts than normal they want you to apply this on your blemishes and your breakouts clinics and bendable peroxide really helps dry out the breakouts you would get around the time of the month that really helps with you know just controlling the breakouts so they heal a lot faster
And they don’t get bigger so like whenever i see one breakout coming um immediately the next day i put i just dab a little bit and just put it on that blemish or that pimple i feel that’s coming out and then it just reduces the size of it and then it completely vanishes like in a matter of two days so i understand your pain i understand your struggle you just
Want to see the results but at the end of the day really sticking out with this regimen you know of taking this every night putting this on every evening putting this on when you do have breakouts doing this every day is the ultimate factor of your outcomes and your results if you miss a day you may not see the results if you forget to do one or the other you
May not see the results you want acne treatment methods it’s all about trial and error for me i tried a lot of different skin care products i spent thousands of dollars on skin care and i never saw the results i wanted and it really discouraged me and then i really had to turn towards you know pharmaceuticals and healthcare to really help me out here because for
Me i knew there must be a way to get clear skin there’s no way i’m i have acne in my 20s for the rest of my life even and this medication worked perfectly for me for hormonal acne it may not work for somebody else with hormonal acne because of other underlying things you know maybe it’s they have pcos maybe they have a overactive thyroid an underactive thyroid
Just something that’s undiagnosed i would say yes give it a shot but but know that it may or may not work for you but at least give it a shot give it three months at least of consistent use i hope that this video really helps you deciding whether or not spirulina lactone works for you let me know direct message me on my instagram i’ll put it down here happy to
Answer any other questions you have for me and i hope that this kind of video about my personal experience with bronolactone helped you because good things come to those who wait so i would say be patient with the results thanks for watching until the end of this video i know it was a long one if you want to see my spironolactone journey i do vlog a little bit
Of it and if you haven’t done so yet please subscribe and follow me on instagram fitnesstammy thank you guys
Transcribed from video
SPIRONOLACTONE CHANGED MY SKIN | My experience | Before & After 9 MONTHS By Tammy Chen
