Greetings all,
First post here. When starting TRT 7 months ago I found a lot of info on this site helpful, thought I’d toss in something I’ve found helped with me “acne.”
My baseline total T was 174. For about 1 year prior to starting T (now on 20mg subQ EOD, lab total T holding around 600, I’m happy) I developed acne on the temples. Never had persistent acne in my life (I’m now mid 40s). After starting T, the acne got worse. Lots of nasty tiny pimples that topicals (clindamycin, benzoyl peroxide, topical retinoids) did little to help with.
I have HSV1 with a pinpoint cold sore on my upper lip ever 3-4 years. On a whim I decided to try some lysine as lysine throws an amino acid wrench into HSV replication. In less than a week the temples calmed down 80% and after a month just a faint background pink persists where the pimples used to be…seems to be fading slowly away. I started using 1mg 4-5 times a day and am now down to 1mg twice a day and things remain under control.
I didn’t have the pimples cultured for HSV and my pimples didn’t look precisely like a herpetic eruption, nonetheless lysine working (and typical topical acne treatment failing) suggests HSV may have been the culprit. So today I googled “lysine acne” and found anecdotal reports of people finding success treating “hormonal acne” with lysine.
I’m just tossing this out there in the event that it might help someone. I’ve read lots of accounts of guys getting peculiar and treatment resistant forehead/temple acne after starting TRT, some going to great lengths (including Accutane) for relief. Lysine is pretty benign stuff, probably a $4 bottle from Walmart would tell a person if it’s going to have any positive effect. Hopefully this helps someone.