Speaker 1 0:13
Well, hello, hello, guys. You're listening to beauty bites with Dr Kay secrets of a plastic surgeon, and I'm going to tell you all my secrets about navigating hormonal acne. I know you guys are suffering. Maybe you've faced the dreaded period breakout. Maybe you wonder why your skin is flaring during pregnancy, during menopause, perimenopause, all the times when we do not need breakouts, we want clear, gorgeous, beautiful skin, and we are getting hormonal acne. Our latest podcast today, we're going to dive deep into how hormones pull the strings of your skin destiny, and it can be a roller coaster, from the monthly, miraculous journey of beginning a period to getting pregnant, and the gradual transition to hormones dwindling and perimenopause, and then actual menopause, when collagen just tanks. So many influences of hormones on the skin, and there are so many tricks that you can do to stabilize this roller coaster hormonal acne. I see so much of it, and you just have to wonder how much of that is driven by the additives and the food sources of what we eat in the modern world, the animals, the cow and beef protein that we're eating from cows that are fed hormones to plump them up. Some of this must be transitioning to the milk we drink and the protein that we eat, the chickens that we eat, the eggs that we eat. So those of you who are vegan, I really hope that you're having less problems with breakouts. I think that hormones are one of the biggest influences in the woman's life. There was a funny quote that I read, and it was so true. It said, once you're done with the business of being a woman, you know, pregnancy, childbirth, periods, menopause, all that, once you're done with the business of being a woman, that's where you come into the power of being who you're intended to be. I thought that is so powerful. But these hormones

Speaker 1 2:23
are definitely a big influence, pimple breakouts, irritability, fatigue, bloating and tearfulness. This is what happens when you start having your period. Did you know day one to day six, your skin looks more dry and dull in the first few days of its cycle, the estrogen and progesterone and testosterone levels are running low, and women tend to report that their skin is super sensitive during this phase of the cycle. Definitely avoid procedures like waxing and lasering and things that can irritate your sensitive skin during those phases. It's nice to pay attention to where you are in your cycle. And I don't know how many of you actually track your periods. I'm hoping you all do, but your skin reacts to your menstrual cycle a lot like the rest of your body. There are telltale signs of what stage you're on, and it all depends on your levels of progesterone and your levels of estrogen. That follicular phase, phase of menstruation, where the follicles in the ovaries are maturing, developing into one significant egg, is one of the phases where you're going to get these type of symptoms. There are three phases of having your period, follicular ovulation phase, luteal phase. During follicular phase, those follicles in your ovaries mature, and one of them wins the race and becomes the actual egg that's going to be released to be fertilized. And that leads to the next phase, ovulation, where that mature egg is released from the ovaries, and then the luteal phase, where perhaps the body is going to prepare the womb for implantation and potential pregnancy. And during these phases, there are so many hormones at play, the luteinizing hormone, which spikes during the luteal phase, follicular hormone, which surges right before you ovulate and then peaks when you do ovulate, estrogen, which surges at the end of that phase, and gradually settles post ovulation, and then progesterone, which builds the womb. It's a later half of the menstrual cycle. So remember, in the very first phase, day one to six, you're going to feel more sensitivity. Day seven through 11, estrogen production is beginning to build, and this can create more healthy cell turnover. The changes in the skin can be excess sebum production, acne breakout, sometimes, redness. There are so many things you can try, like exfoliants, gentle exfoliants, to help remove dead skin cells. I. Love my cleared up, clarifying acne wash, because not only does it strip away some of the dead cells with glycolic and alpha hydroxy acids, beta hydroxy acid, it also treats and improves the skin bacterial load with benzoyl peroxide, you can do treatments like hydrofacial to help control sebum production. This is a phase where you want to avoid chemical peels and regenerative treatments and lasers, because you're super sensitive. Day 12 to 16, your estrogen reaches its peak at this stage, and this is right before ovulation. So this is where you're going to look healthy and glowy. And some people even feel like they look prettiest in this phase. This is a time when you can use moisturizers that are calming and make sure you're up on your nutrients, like you're taking Folate, Magnesium, zinc, B 12, b6 remember that you get PMS relief when you are fully tanked when you're taking niacinamide for your skin. You're going to calm inflammatory skin lesions. You're going to reduce pigmentation 10 tendencies when you're taking a really good balanced diet with B 12, b6 folic acid, leafy green vegetables, you're also going to improve your PMS type symptoms. And after ovulation, is the time day 17 to day 24 when your estrogens drop and progesterone reaches its peak. And this is when you can be more prone to oily buildup and potential breakouts. And then right before your period, day 25 to 28 testosterone production takes over, and that is kind of one of the main things that's androgenic that can lead to the dreaded period hormonal acne breakout session that tends to be around the lower face, and we call it perioral acne around the mouth acne. It's definitely so important to know what phase your body is in to better understand how to titrate your skin care. And I think it takes all of us so long to figure out our period and our period clock. And I remember being a young young girl and just not even having reliability of knowing when your period was coming. And we're seeing that more now with the amount of stress we see in 20 year olds and young people and even in 30 year olds. And I think it just has to do with so much psychological stress and burden that the body feels that it's not sure it's safe to ovulate or not. So understanding and mapping your period cycle is going to really help you, and then going with the flow a little bit, understanding that you cannot have perfect skin all of the time. The hormones that contribute to melasma, they ebb and they flow, and they happen to all of us, and to some women with darker skin types, they get much more melasma. 50 to 70% of pregnant women get melasma. And when it's present, when you get melasma during pregnancy, we call it colasma, and it's definitely patches that pop up around the forehead, the nose, the upper lips, the cheeks. You can reduce these flare ups by knowing when you're going to have high levels of these hormones. And limit your sun exposure, protect your skin, mineral sunscreens being best, especially for pregnancy, I'm a big advocate of mineral sunscreens. So many of the chemical sunscreens are suspected of playing havoc with hormonal systems in the body. They do get absorbed. Some of them can mimic hormonal, cyclic hormone structure, and there's just no need to use a chemical sunscreen when we have such good mineral sunscreen options available. So zinc oxide, titanium dioxide, sits on the surface of the skin. Everything bounces right off, not going to be absorbed. So it's so good for pregnancy and even afterwards. For my melasma patients, they must use a mineral sunscreen. I do not want the free radicals generated by ionizing UV rays penetrating the skin and triggering the defense mechanisms of the cells and the melanocytes to kick up in gear. We want to suppress that and prevent the entry of any ionizing radiation. I love my clear, sheer sunscreen, and our absolute cult favorite for my skincare brand is called Ultimat, and that one's like a BB cream. It's tinted, it's SPF 50. It feels amazing going on. So find the products that you're really going to use and use them. Love, love, love, a tinted sunscreen during menopause. So we kind of talked about during the four phases, and understanding what happens during pregnancy, understanding why we get hormonal acne during menopause, estrogen levels drop and when. Estrogen decreases, so does production of collagen, which leads to loss of volume, decreased Skin Thickness, facial sagging and wrinkling. And research shows that women can lose about 30% of their collagen in the first five years of menopause. That is ridiculous.

Speaker 1 10:18
30% These are the times we need to turn on the regenerative mechanisms of the skin. And we do that with bio stimulators, collagen bio stimulators like Sculptra, like hyper dilute radius. We do that with Retin A, which improves cell turnover and builds thickness of the dermal skin. We do that with taking collagen peptides every day internally and eating lots of protein. I love my internal radiance. Collagen powder for that, that's a great alternative to helping boost those building blocks. And then we do that with treatments like micro needling, lasers, radio frequency, the things that stimulate collagen to grow. There's so many ways you can learn about your menstrual cycle and how it impacts your skin, what makes you glow, what makes you start to feel crepey and textural change. We all have good days and bad days. It doesn't matter what your age is. If you're a woman and you are having fluctuating skin problems, just understanding where you are in the flow of that makes it feel so much more controllable. And I'm here to teach you, and we have amazing aesthetician Connie who does virtual visits. And all of us have been through these stages of life. If you don't have an experienced provider or someone who's super young, it helps to talk to someone who's been through it. I've already had the puberty. I've had the acne of the 20s. I've had the acne of the 30s, being pregnant four times. I've had the melasma. I've had the skin changes that are starting to happen with Peri menopausal changes, and definitely have the experience this skin care journey is like riding a rough road, and we're going to help you smoothen it out by giving you some knowledge, some understanding and paying attention to your body's signs and signals your body is telling you what is going on. If you pay attention to the small signs, the times when you're super sensitive, the times when you have dullness, times when you're glowy, times when you're sebaceous and oily, your body's telling you what's going on with the hormones. So then we talk later, another podcast we're going to do about hormone supplementation and how to navigate that. You can find me on my instagram. Beauty by Dr Kay. It's D, R, K, a, y, doing amazing things with people's faces. And our website is the same Beauty by Dr kay.com, that's where you can find our amazing skincare don't forget to check out the four step acne kit, literally, the wipe away the day. Acne pads are the best resource for you if you have hormonal acne in the lower face, just one or two days of these. By the end of the third day, everything is looking amazing. Some of my patients have almost had to go on Accutane, and we've been able to, in a month, reverse the cystic acne changes with this four step amazing acne kit. So that's it for now, guys, stay beautiful and stay cleared up. You.