Hello asian5pear,
If you ate all veggies and fruits, that is all carbs, actually worsening the condition. Try a low carb diet, not for weight loss, but for insulin control. Maybe along with those supplements and persistance, it might make a difference for you. Good luck!

wow, i thought bread and crackers and grains were carbs, not fruits..hmm...thanks for that info! i guess i can only eat meat and brown rice type stuff?

This forum is a great place to find out about diet. Try this link. Diet info on Active Low Carber Forum Every person's tolerance for carbs varies. Dr. Atkins' books are very informative, as well as many others. Keep researching!!

Did anyone else try selsun blue? I know that selenium sulfide (the active ingredient) has been used on patchy skin caused by fungal infections. I'm wondering if the product works on acanthosis nigricans, too. The only thing I could think of is that it irritates the skin (i.e. drying, crusting, etc.) and works like a chemical peel...so when the skin heals its looks better. Just some thoughts. I've had patches since I was 5...I'm looking for a break

Hey everyone.

I've also had this annoying skin condition for most of my life. (Since puberty.)
I'm not sure if I have PCOS or not, and I have no insurance to find out either... So I figured in any case, a low-carb diet couldn't hurt. Thanks to AN I know that I obviously have insulin resistance (or produce too much insulin), so no doctor needed for that.

I've never been "obese", but I have been overweight for most of my life (puberty strikes again). So I'm praying that a loss of just 40 lbs(max) will help, I don't think I can go much lower and be a healthy weight.


I don't get the thick patches anymore (did when I was a teen), but back when I did, I would use Nair on my arm pits to remove hair.... and it would also remove the AN.
Of course this was only temporary, but it did work in a "chemical peel way". It didn't irritate my skin, but then again my skin doesn't get irritated easily.

Also does anyone in here with AN also suffer from Confluent and Reticulated Papillomatosis?

A picture of it: (It's like a patchy version of AN, and is sometimes associated with AN.)
http://162.129.70.33/images/papilomatosus_1_040402.jpg

I was diagnosed with it many years ago (funny they diagnosed this and not the very obvious AN!!), and it went away with a round antibiotics.
However it came back, and has disappeared and reappeared many times since.

What I've noticed with this condition, is that I can easily control it with my diet.... a low-carb one. I've tried it at least 4 times now, and each time it goes away.
So I was just wondering if anyone here also has it?

Diane, wow i actually might have that papilomatosis on my arms and under my arms i have an..which is weird, im going to read abotu it

Hi all, I'm new. I've been low-carbing for about 3 months now, and I'm still trying to kick AN. I know it lessens with diet changes; I did Atkins a few years ago and it went away completely except for a faint slight "yellow stain" to my armpits and inner thighs, which I believe would've gone away entirely with time, but I got pregnant 7 months into the diet and my doctor insisted that low carbing would hurt the baby so I stopped.

Well, I'm back on Atkins and before I started (AN is the main reason I went back to the diet) I was at a business conference wearing a short sleeve shirt when I noticed I was getting AN on my inner elbows. It was faint and yellowy, and doubt anyone really noticed, but I was very self-conscious of it the entire time I was there. It was awful.

I cried about it a bit, but realized my health had gotten so far out of whack I was just going to have to be a big girl about it and get back on the horse, so here I am.

Three months ago I had AN on my torso in a butterfly shaped pattern that extended under my breasts and to my solar plexus. It was very thick and very prominent since I'm pale. The heaviest stripe of it went down from my solar plexus almost to my navel. I also had it on my inner elbows, and a narrow stripe of it along the back of my neck. I also have it on my inner thighs.

I've been on Atkins since November and it's completely gone from my inner elbows and my torso - I still have a slight stripe on the back of my neck, although it's much lighter. It's still in the armpit area and inner thigh area too, but it's lighter there as well.

I'm hate it that so many other have this condition too, but I'll admit I'm relieved I'm not alone. I do have PCOS, and started showing signs of AN when I was 9. My mom took me to the doctor about it. It showed up in my armpits first, and we thought it was an allergic reaction to deodorant. My doctor had no idea what it was, just thought it was maybe a fungal infection. He gave me a steroid cream that did nothing. I've been battling it ever since.

Here's hoping another few months and it will be gone from my neck. The rest of it can deal with, although perhaps the decision that a low carb lifestyle is simply a must for me to keep my diabetes and PCOS in control will pay off in the long run concerning my AN. Who knows how far the stuff will fade by a year from now, ya know what I mean?

Best wishes to everyone here, and thanks for letting me vent.

~Kitty

Hi all! I just accidently stumbled upon this forum. I have read and re-read every single post in this thread and I wish I could give you all hugs right now!

A small bit about me:

My name is Megan, I'm 15 years old, I'm overweight.

So here we go!

I have Acanthosis Nigricans. The summer of '07, I was at a pool party with my friends, and I was giving my friend a piggy back ride in the pool (yay for playing chicken haha). about a week later, I started noticing some dark spots on the back of my neck. My first thought was that it was a bruise of some sort from my friend.

Over time, it started getting a bit worse. I showed my mom, who wasn't sure what it was. I went to the doctor, who said that it looked like "irritation" of some sort and sent me off to the dermatologist. Well, my dermatologist wasn't a very pleasent person, so I've not been back, but he did tell me that I have AN. and gave me some cream, saything that the only real way to make it go away is to lose weight.

I never really got into the whole "losing weight" thing, and it's since gotten worse. It's under my arms, and on my neck. The arms I can live with, but my neck...I just...GRR. I looked up pictures of it on line and I realized that I don't have it nearly as badly as other people, and for me it's very obvious that it's a rash of some sort, while for others it appears to just be dirt.

My hair is long, I usually wear it down anyway, and it's only on the sides of my neck. But I'm still self concious.

Along with this, I want to be an actor, I go to a high school for Performing arts, I take voice lessons, etc. So far, I've managed to get away without having to put my hair up for anything. a director saw it a few months ago and I explained it away as being an irritation rash. But I can only do this for so long, and a part is going to come along one day where I'm gonna need my hair to be up haha.

I'm darker-skinned (not African American. just darker skiinned) and I've heard that it shows up more with darker skin (for this I curse my genes. =P Just kidding).

Anyway, I've written down every single suggestion from this thread and I intend to try all of them. Make up doesn't cover it - infact it irritates it - which is definitely not fun. So I'm willing to try anything.

Along with that, of course, I'm working on losing weight. It's very hard, my weight is flucuating, but I've dropped some, so I'll continue on that path.

I apologize for the length of this. This is just something that has really affected my life and I'm so greatful that I found you all.

yes i have this thing for nearly 14 years now it never seems to go away i told my doctor but they havent done anything about it they just say its skinpigmentation I relly hate this thing it affects my self steem alot

Hey guys,
I've been taking enteric coated fish oil pills that have a heavier dosage of fish oil and omega 3 than normal fish oil pills, and i think its working. My patches are still there but I notice when I'm taking the pills each day and eating a little better it becomes a less visible.
try it! tell me if it works for you guys too...

Does anyone have a link to a photograph of this condition?

What you're describing sounds familiar, but I thought it was due to old age.

I first developed patches like you're discussing after following one of those highly touted diets -- tons of veggies & tons of fruit & multiple servings of beans and legumes and it was that "healthy" diet which got me gaining tons of excess weight.

Anyway.....

I got totally rid of these patches of discoloration.

First, I'd tried a variety of lotions, and suspecting that they might be a type of fungus or yeast, I tried ALL the OTC lotions for any possible form of fungus or yeast.

Anyway.....

I don't even know whether this is SAFE to do, but what I did was to lay immersed in a very very very hot bath for twenty minutes.

WHAT was in the bath water?

One of the LARGE boxes of Arm & Hammar Baking Soda -- the big one, it's at least two times the size of the one used to put in the refrigerator.

I think that MAYBE it was about 3 weeks later that the skin patches started to reappear, and so I re-did the long long long bath of VERY hot water which had the contents of the LARGE box of baking soda in it. I soaked for a LONG time.

It's been at least a year, they haven't returned -- they got to be a nasty irritant, as in the heat the skin became very itchy, but when scratched was super irritated.

I think that I even once tried using OTC cortizone and it did nothing, either.

I can't recall precisely, but MAYBE ... initially I did that long bath two nights in a row, and then 3 weeks later.

The stuff was totally gone within days of the second bath, started to return, and never came back after the third bath.

I'm just astounded that dermatologists say there is "NO" way to get rid of this stuff.

But I never went to a doc for any diagnosis, so maybe mine isn't AN?????

http://images.google.com/images?hl=...ricans%0D%0A%22

The patches that started developing on me after gaining a great deal of weight were either brownish or reddish brown; some of the photographs show very dark coloration nearer to black, but not all of the pics are that dark in color.

They were on my ribcage and my middle to lower back.

Did your skin condition look like this by any chance?
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&hs=iq&ei=bQrDSdHCLKr0nQeWwbjfDA&resnum=1&q=confluent%20and%20reticulated%20papillomatosis&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

It's called Confluent and Reticulated Papillomatosis.
It's another skin condition of mine that will flare up on a high carb diet... and pretty much goes away on it's own on a lower carb diet.
Sometimes it's associated with AN.

No - there's no pattern to the random blotches I had here & there on my trunk and lower back.

There are SO many different diseases that can be associated with skin discolorations and miscellaneous rashes:

http://tinyurl.com/c73dup


One other thing that I just remembered is that in the aftermath of those heavy duty baking soda baths is that all my skin tags also disappeared - they are starting to re-arise, so I'll have to pick up another large box of baking soda.