Wow this explains everything

[PatmHelper]

Ok well i am currently doing a full scale investigation on patm and i found this article to basically reinforces the theory that patm is connected to sebum. The article highlights foods that make your skin oily, and the foods on the list are the same ones that many patmers say you should cut out of their diet. https://www.mdacne.com/article/foods-that-make-your-skin-oily . This is such an important revelation and i could believe it when i first saw the article.

[patm199326]

Yeah for me specifically I do think PATM is related to the sebum on my skin. I unfortunately have lost the genetic lottery when it comes to this condition. I have extremely oily skin ever since puberty. This seems to be concentrated on my face and scalp. When I first noticed PATM reactions seven years ago I realized my face was giving off a foul, almost cheese-like odor. It was disgusting. I would test this by rubbing my fingers under my chin, or rubbing my forearm across my forehead and smelling it. I also sweat alot, and when sweat mixes with the oil, the smell becomes even worse.

My reactions have gotten better over the years, but I still get them and it still severely affects my day-to-day life. I quit school because of this. It does make sense to me that PATM is likely related to the gut. Before getting PATM or the oily skin odor, my diet was terrible. I would drink myself to death every weekend, and ate all the fast food in the world. I also didn't have a limit in how much I ate. I was overeating every single day.

[PatmHelper]

I have tried to find out how to get rid of the sebum for a long time so there are some things you can try in order to reduce the amount. So you can test the type of things that will work for you by using dawn dish soap as a shampoo and or body wash, and this is to know if your body produces more oil if you use a harsh detergent. If you have more oil on your skin after you use it then that means you should use gentle products on your skin. You can use moisturizing shampoo and body wash but a lot of people put that on their shampoo so you have to find things that actually help, one thing that helped me was using a things mixed with oil and it might sound counter intuitive but ill explain it later. In the same vein you should be gentler so dont scrape the shampoo in your scalp, use shampoo for your scalp and conditioner for your ends, you could try to shampoo less often or more often but dont exceed once a day. If the dawn dish soap made your skin dry then continue to use it, also use hot water when you shower, you could try sunbathing which is explained in another post by the only patmer with a profile picture lmao, use cheap products like a 2 or 3 in 1. One thing that helped me tremendously was using coconut oil for my hair but its from OGX and i leave it in after my hair its wet(important) so after i shower. Im not sure if using hot or cold water affects the effectiveness of it but im guessing it does since hot water opens up your pores so it might be better if you shower with hot/warm water. The reason why using oil based products helps oil production is because the reason your body produces oil is because its a layer of protection for your skin and it shows up when you dont have enough moisture on your skin so oil based products replace your naturally produced oil which causes patm so it tells your body that you dont need to produce oil because you already have some, also oil dissolves oil so its easier for oil based products to wash away sebum, and lastly its because some oil moisturizes your skin. Hope any of this was useful to you.

[patm199326]

Appreciate you giving some tips where you found some success. I unfortunately have tried all of what you mentioned with no avail. In fact, I thought coconut oil could help, but it made things worse. For some reason the coconut oil (also the ingredient caprylic/capric triglycerides) seem to react with my natural sebum and develops a rancid odor. I heard comments from people sitting next to me at a Starbucks once about something smelling off. I even checked myself, and sure enough there was a strong rancid odor. I guess I’m “lucky” enough to be able to at least smell myself.

I have tried the aggressive dawn dish soap approach as well. Again, this didnt work because no matter what I do or even don’t do (I will elaborate), I always produce an excessive amount of sebum on my face and scalp. I’ve also tried the “no poo” method where you only wash your face and scalp with water. This also didn’t work. In fact, my reactions were more frequent, although its possible I didnt do it long enough (one month) but I just couldn’t handle the excessive reactions. This is also how I’ve figured out that my PATM reactions are 100% due to my face and scalp odor.

This doesn’t rule out some sort of gut issue, but its likely that curing this will take a long time without cheating on diet. I have been struggling with this personally because I realize that I have a terrible relationship with food.

[Killthecough]

I think we’re closer than ever to figuring this out

It would also explain why smells stuck to our clothes because of sebum and oil over production.

[Killthecough]

I also have very oily skin and sebum over production. Thanks for the article this is eye opening.