There are many ways
for you to treat your acne, and on this page is a focus
on
some of the more popular methods I have tried and researched, such as
antibiotics, accutane and cleansers...
Often
antibiotics can be a quick fix for acne, yet the reality is they
aren't likely to help you in the long term. This is because the
acne-causing bacteria that the antibiotics attack, quickly mutate and
become resistant to the antibiotics.
This
means that sooner rather than later, the positive effects of the
antibiotics generally run out. The next choice is either take another
strain of antibiotic, one which the bacteria hasn't learnt to adapt to
yet, or realize that antibiotics are never going to be a long term
solution to your acne.
I
personally spent close to 2 years taking 3 different types and
strengths of antibiotics; tetracycline, erythromycin and minocycline.
The tetracycline worked very well after 1 month, and then 2
months later, it suddenly became ineffective. So I got about 2 months
of
clear skin using tetracycline.
The
other two antibiotics strains weren't nearly as effective - they never produced totally clear
skin, and
the poor results they did manage didn't last very
long...
Remember,
the entire basis for antibiotics being a good
treatment for
acne is that they destroy the bacteria that causes acne - Propionibacterium
acnes. Yet
this bacteria is found on everyone's skin, not just acne sufferers.
There's more though...
Conventional
dermatologists concentrate their efforts on
destroying
this bacteria when treating their patients. And as I said before,
the results are often very positive at first, but when the bacteria
mutates to become invulnerable to the antibiotic, it becomes apparent
that
antibiotic treatment has limited use in acne treatments.
There
are actually negative side effects to taking antibiotics, which
unfortunately dermatologists don't recognize. The most harmful being
candida - which is an imbalance of bacteria and fungi in the body. This
causes problems in the long term, and is actually why people often find
their acne gets a lot worse after antibiotic treatment.
The
other main acne treatment prescribed by dermatologists is accutane.
This is
a vitamin A type drug, and is supposed to be the holy grail of acne
treatments. But as with most drugs, the results aren't always as stated
on the packaging...
With that said though,
accutane does often
produce good results for a
few months, but then the effect runs out. And with the side
effects of accutane being so potentially harmful, is it worth taking it?
Accutane is prescribed
for those people
with more severe forms of acne,
cystic acne and more stubborn acne that doesn't respond to
antibiotics or the typical topical treatments (covered below).
I can state that accutane
did clear my
acne - for a limited time. But
after about 1 month of relatively clear skin, the acne
came back - and this time it was angry.
Cleansers are often taken
for acne, and I
took many of them. I can
honestly say that for someone who had stubborn chronic acne, these
cleansers did nothing to clear my skin. I wish that putting a cream or
gel on your face is going to work, but chances are it won't work for
anyone with chronic acne.
You've probably heard of
BP right? That's Benzoyl
Peroxide. It's a topical cream that you apply to your acne, which is
supposed to be an effective acne treatment...
Well, there is a "slight"
problem with BP
- it produces free radicals
(which attack healthy skin cells) and has a similar action to
unprotected lengthy sun exposure. So this means benzoyl peroxide causes
premature aging of the skin, and is linked to skin cancer.
You might say that it is
odd that
dermatologists prescribe BP to their
acne patients, who are evidently having enough problems with their skin
as it is!
There are also plenty of
"over-the-counter"
cleansers you can try for your
acne.
They commonly contain an
ingredient called Salicylic
Acid.
Now this acid causes the shedding of skin cells to become more rapid,
which tries to prevent oil from building up in skin pores and follicles
- and thus help reduce breakouts.
That's the theory at
least. In practice,
salicylic acid, as found in
the most popular acne cleansers available commercially from chemists,
supermarkets and even online, is woefully ineffective for anything but
the most mild cases of pimples - certainly not enough for moderate or
severe acne.
Salicylic acid is a
chemical that works as
a chemical exfoliant -
shedding dead skin cells to allow quick growth of new cells. Yet from
the feedback I've received from my readers, salicylic
acid-based products actually worsened their acne
condition...
...And I hate to tell you
this, but if
you're currently using a
salicylic
acid based topical, what you are using is actually a toxic substance.
The effects of using it in the long term are probably
damaging for your skin, and this accounts for why many acne sufferers
see their acne becomes worse after a few weeks of using such a skincare
product.
With
all this debunking of conventional acne treatments, you might
think
that I have an axe to grind. Well, not really, I'm simply describing my
experiences based on years of suffering from acne, and years of
research into the condition and possible effective
treatments.
There
is just so much information on acne out there, both good, bad (and
ugly), and it does take a while to find out what's what in the world of
acne treatments.