There likely is a large disconnect between what your body needs and what you think it needs. Your conscious may be largely influenced by several stimuli (aka other well intended peoples advice) and ignore the subtles cries of your subconscious.

You must throw everything out the window if you think it is not helping. For example a simple allergic reaction to something you take or a nutritional deficiency can trigger that direct symptom or weaken the immune system as an indirect route.

For example, in my case if I was to continue a mostly raw diet I would be struggling today whether because of the enzyme inhibitors or because of the large amount of energy it takes to digest them. No digestion means waste accumulation. So in my case adopting a diet with cooked food and actually very low in greens (more root vegetables) was highly beneficial to me (as per my Ayurvedic Dosha in this case).
Bottom line is I alligned with what my body was telling me, craving the foods I eat and the way theyre prepared from scratch is enough for me to know Im doing the right thing.

Steering away from what your body requires will eventually create nutritional deficiencies that may escalate to bigger problems (there's ALWAYS a deficiency as a root cause). However supplementing things willy nilly may not make things better (making things even worse) specially if untested and unconfirmed.
Hundreds of conditions can indicate a deficiency of a combination of nutrients which ratios are critical. It's pretty much a shot in the dark guessing what to take. However the body knows these by utilizing all senses and signaling your conscious to act upon something that may be useful or not to the body.

That's why I do try to align myself with what my body is telling me (very difficult when so much very real and true information is outthere).

For those of us having trouble understanding the subtle messages of the subconscious there's always biofeedback analysis. The best $150 I ever spent was to have a SCIO session to have a DNA analysis and evaluate all the factors present in my current state. It was incredibly accurate and does pinpoint strategies and ways to rebalance health without any guessing games.

This may be useful to you if you're having a hard time listening to your body. It will offer some ah-ah moments and help you realize what can be done (rather than guessing).

Ultimately though, you must realize that it was the accumulation of several factors that got you where you are and the only way of going back to health will be knowing the factors and listening to what your body is telling you (your body knows exactly what to do to regain health and remove those factors).

That's why I often think humans have a curse by having a conscious mind - this sponge sucks in so many stimuli from our unbalanced environment that it becomes dirty and begins blocking the health maintaining information coming from our autonomous system. Time to clean the filter

i dont think youve tried a 40 day fast

Sorry to hear this, but have you checked your mineral ratios with a hair mineral and trace elements analysis? From my viewpoint and hearing your story you should def. check it out, if you are following a mostly vegetarian diet and do a lot of gung-ho cleansing, your body probably is in starvation mode. Remember that now that you are finished with the dirty job (cleansing and purging), you have to build up your body again. Iodine is great, but there could be other wacked up mineral ratios causing the acne. Copper toxicity and zinc deficiency will mess up hormones, skin, mental stability, etc. I don't know your diet or anything, but I would assume that if you are mostly vegan or vegetarian your body is starving for zinc. The best way to do this, is to contact a practitioner that does hair mineral analysis (trace elements inc. or analytical research labs, inc preferably) and get an assessment on your current status. I really urge you to do this. It could be a great door-opener to your problems.

I think lots of people could benefit from this, full cleansing is great and relieves the body from toxicity, but it will not normalize every bodily function. For hormones and the endocrine system to function well (mainly responsible for excess sebum production) they need well-balanced mineral ratios. Cleansing can correct some of this, but without corrective supplementation it is hard for the body to regain momentum. Many supplements are also very estrogenic (like evening primrose oil, spirulina, flax, soy, etc.) and can interfere with mineral levels. Since estrogen and copper are closely tied to each other, you probably need to avoid many supplements, IF it shows up that you have to much copper.

(my english is not too good at explaining this so check out some of the links..)



http://www.arltma.com/CopperToxDoc.htm


http://www.drkaslow.com/html/zinc-copper_imbalances.html

and in general 'copper toxicity', 'zinc deficiency' 'estrogen dominance'.

You do lots of great stuff, ..you just got to hang in there man!

Phil

I just typed this whole big thing and accidentally pressed the back button and everything was gone,oh well - here I go again. What I was writing was:

Your story sounds exactly like mine. I too also moved back into my parents house and quit work because of acne. I've also done countless cleanses, eat a very healthy diet, have grown my own wheat grass and done basically everything you have even spending literally thousands of dollars with no pay off. I've even stood on top of a water tower and contemplated jumping on countless amounts of times but something always stops me. Your skin sounds very much like my own - dry but oily at the same time and the never ending outbreaks. I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE GOING THROUGH!! It's good to know that I am not the only one. All I can say is that there is a reason why everything happens (under chaos there is order). There's a reason why your Acne breaks out and chances are it may not be something a diet can fix alone. I think digitalman makes some good points. Finding out what your allergic too may help you (it's helped me) and knowing what your body is deficient in. I personally don't like taking supplements because it always seems to make my skin worse (probably kicking the ratio's out of proportion). I don't think continuing cleansing will help either because your body most likely needs to rest from it all ( a lot of my Acne went away when I gave it a good break). You just need to keep searching for possibilities and eventually you will find the cause. I will tell you what has helped me and it may or may not help you but at least it's giving you more possibilities. Apparently, when yo raise your blood Sugar levels too fast (your insulin), it realeases a hormone called something like IGN1 or something.. This then triggers excess oil to produce in your skin. You say you eat 80% veg so it may not bother you anyway, but, keep in mind that potato's, corn and even carrot if you eat too much can raise your insulin levels too high. You should only have 2 bits of fruit a day because of the amount of Sugar in them, apples are good to eat because they lie on the low to medium GI rating line as well as having loads of antioxidants. Grains are a big perpetrator. Eating foods like garlic, broccoli, cabbage & cauliflower which contain sulfur something are good to keep your skin soft. Having protein shakes which contain all the essential amino-acids is good for your body and particulayly skin for repairing. I use rice protein because I cant have whey or soy because of the hormones. Exercise is imperative, at least 20 - 30 mins a day to get the blood flowing to the skin and bodily organs (don't over do it though). Something that I have just recently come across was very interesting. I don't want to say here so I will just give you the website. The first link is a scientific explanation of what happens when you do a little something too much, the second is a guys story about how he got Acne and dry skin from doing this certain thing all too often (I am suspect of doing this myself and I have found that it really helps to keep this in mind).


http://www.herballove.com/library/resource/overmas/fatal.asp


http://www.herballove.com/library/resource/overmas/mystory.asp


I am currently doing psychology and studying the brain. To me this makes a lot of sense. When your parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system aren't working correctly it causes all your bodily organs to stress, can make you miserably depressed and ultimately causing endless acne to erupt.

Something that philla said about not getting enough zinc and maybe iron could be very relevant. Meat (particularly beaf) has a different typeof iron and zinc and literally gets absorbed 10 times easier. I noticed when I was not eating any meat (or small amounts) I had dry, oily cystic skin. When I decided to incorporate meat (particularly beaf) back into my diet I noticed an almost instant glow in my skin.

It also helps to have a good skin care product. So what te helldo ya choose with so many out there!!! I'm still tryin ta work that out for myself. Currently I'm trying this new range which I have bought sample packs because there products are literally 100's of $$$, but, the are unique to everything else because they work on rectifying deficiencies in your body through your skin (weird huh??), but, the have before and after pics which are quite amazing and there products have glycoproteins in them which is exactly what skin feeds on. As I said, if you like them get the sample packs first before spending loads of $$$.


http://www.astrali.com.au/index.html


Its an aussie website but there might be an overseas one. Other then that my friend I wish you the very very best of luck and will pray for you as I do everynight for myself and other people. Maybe try and take a break from the wheatgrass and other cleansing supplements to give your body a break. Try this EFT thing if you haven't already (it has kinda helped me, it may be worth a shot)


http://www.mercola.com/forms/eftcourse.htm


God be with you my friend, there will be a light at the end of all this!!