Acne Magazine

This supposed side effect of the immensely popular, yet immensely controversial acne medication Accutane, is actually news to me.  The only side effect I was intensely aware of with this very powerful, serious acne drug was the fact that it can cause serious deformation and other problems in fetuses of women who are taking the  medication, and also I was aware that it had been linked to depression and even hypotheticaly linked to suicidal behavior.

This lawsuit against the makers of Accutane, the Swiss drug company Roche, involved a man who was able to persuade the court that Accutane substantially and directly caused his bowel disease, and the man consequently won his case and will be paid a pretty large sum of money by the drugmaker, who has had to made millions on the acne medication by this point, since it’s been on the market since 1982.

The disease the man suffers from is called inflammatory bowel disease, and supposedly can cause some major discomfort and is a major disruption to the lives of those it affects, hence the large sum of money awarded the plaintiff in this case.  The company, Roche, however, released a statement saying that it plans to appeal the verdict and also that it feels there is no hard, scientific and substantial correlation between its acne medication and the inflammatory bowel disease.  Hmm….interesting, and perhaps yet another reason to seek out herbal acne supplements and other alternatives such as Acnezine or Zenmed Dermacleanse to treat and prevent acne breakouts. 

The plaintiff is in his mid thirties and says that because of the inflammatory bowel disease that he says cropped up after he took Accutane in 1995, he had to have several surgeries, and ultimately had to have his whole colon removed.  Yikes!  That is some serious stuff, for sure.  The court documented that he had bouts with diarrhea and even incontinence due to the inflammatory bowel disease, and I’m sure this type of severity helped him in winning a large sum of money from the makers of the medication, which it sounds like the man is entitled to.

It is worthy to note that the jury did not feel the makers of Accutane were not guilty of any type of fraud, but they did feel that they were at least guilty of neglect, and not doing enough research to prevent this sort of thing before these people (there may be more, as reported) were diagnosed with the serious disease.  The plaintiff is hoping that his verdict will pave the way for what he feels are other victims who suffered the same consequences after taking the acne medicine.

Have you ever wondered, if you work in an environment like I do, with harsh ultraviolet lighting in an office, if this type of lighting actually hurts your skin or contributes to acne?  Well, undoubtedly ultraviolet lighting makes our skin LOOK ten times worse, as we can all atest to if we’ve ever looked in a mirror in a room that is lit with ultraviolet lighting, but what about any type of environmental damage done to our skin from actually absorbing this type of light?

First, when we are talking about Ultraviolet light, we are not talking the magnitude of UV light in the form of UVA and UVB rays that come from the sun and get that much deserved reputation for causing skin cancer and accelerating aging, as well as increasing acne problems, but we are talking about a lower intensity, lower frequency of light. 

This is typically used in office environments and department stores because it tends to go a lot further (radiate) and also the bulbs need to be changed rarely, in contrast to the softer bulbs we may be putting in our homes, or in even sharper contrast to the energy saver bulbs we may have in our homes (like I have in my office - it’s very subtle, very soft, but unfortunately also makes you strain your eyes a bit until the intensity gets a little brighter).

Although there really is no proof or hard core studies that ultraviolet lighting used in work environments is skin damaging or acne causing, I do notice that after a full week of work my skin tends to look washed out, and the small bumps on my face seem to get worse, whereas when I am home for a few days, my skin gets back to normal.  

What about rosacea and acne rosacea?  Might these be exacerbated by this harsh lighting?  I would not doubt it at all.  I have known people who do think their rosacea and acne rosacea tends to flare up when they are under “harsh lighting” all day, even after they get home, for a few hours, it’s almost like their skin needs to calm down.   

This could be a huge compilation of reasons though.  Number one, stress, number two the air circulation, and number three, the lack of sleep we usually all experience during the work week thanks to long hours and waking too early.  However, I don’t think this type of lighting is “good” for the skin, and in fact may sap a lot of moisture from it and even some of our natural protective barriers against the ravages of the environment.  This is just a hunch though, unfortunately I couldn’t find any studies done on this, so if any of you readers do, please do tell! 

Well, it appears that there may be a new herb for female hormone regulation that I had either never heard of as a female hormone regulator, or just didn’t read enough about it.  I had, though, heard of the ChasteBerry herbal remedy before, I just didn’t understand what it’s therapeutic uses were for before I recently read about women using it to help regulate their hormones. 

Chasteberry or Vitex, as it is also called, is a remedy derived from the Chaste Tree.  It is known for having diverse qualities, meaning that it may have a totally opposite effect when either taken by a different person, or taken in varying quantities by the same person. 

A good example of this in my life is when I took too much Kava Kava, an herbal relaxant, one night before bed, and kept waking up with restless legs and a buzzing head because of the quantity.  Because I had taken too much, the oppositie, ideal effect of the herbal remedy, which is relaxation, then turned in to stimulation! 

The same can be true with Chasteberry, so you just want to be careful in dosage if you want to try it as a woman to help regulate the endocrine system, or help to normalize your male vs. female hormones, which happens to be the single most major contributor to acne vulgaris. 

In addition to its reputation in helping to regulate the hormones, Chaste also has been known to possibly produce aphrodisiac-like qualities, and is often used as a period regulator and as an herbal remedy to help stop premenstrual cramping in women.  This is probably not supposed to be used in men for regulating hormones, because it specifically is indicated to help normalize and balance the female hormone production of progesterone. 

Another herbal remedy that I feel helps normalize the whole endocrine system and also helps to internally “calm” stress and help reduce inflammation and acne all together is the Dermacleanse system - the good thing about it is that it can be used by men and women though. 

It is estimated that nearly 80% of people in the US take some sort of daily multivitamin. Vitamins are a huge industry, and there is a reason why : Many people really believe that multivitamins help them in one way or another, and feel good about taking a multivitamin to help round out the vital vitamins and minerals they may not be getting in their average daily food consumption.  These vitamins can be incredibly helpful in the fight against acne, acne rosacea skin care, and just generally maintaining the health and overall integrity of the skin over time. What about multivitamins specifically made for the health of your skin? Skin health is of vital importance, especially to those of us with acne, because if our skin’s defenses are low, our acne lesions tend to take a lot longer to heal, and our skin may even be more prone to acne breakouts to begin with if it is not in top condition.

Remember months ago, how I told you all about my experience with my handheld soft light laser from Beurer, and how I really thought it helped my acne lesions heal a lot faster?

You may be wondering why I’m writing about an over the counter substance that was banned in diet products, ephedrine, and your skin and your acne problem, but I’m writing about this because ephedrine, the stimulant is still used in many OTC cold, sinus and allergy medicines and is still pretty readily available to the public.Granted, you do have to sign for ephedrine-containing products for colds, sinuses and allergies, such as some Claritins and other antihistamines and cold medicines, but it is still readily available to the average joe, just with some buying limitations because they don’t want people who make methamphetamine to buy it up, and ephedrine is a major component of this street drug, and is used in meth labs to produce meth.

I received this question from a reader that I wanted to share, of course it is kept strictly anonymous, but I thought this may be of interest to some of you out there who are men considering this treatment as well. 

Question : Hello i really need some advice/help with a serious issue

Im 26 male, from ages 16-22 i had really bad acne, i was on accutane a few
times along side other prescription creams and gels. im 26 now and for the
past year ive been using Clindamycin lotion and its helped me alot to the
point where i only have 1 or 2 pimples. so for now it seems everything is
under control. My question is,.. I will be going on Testosterone injections
(for muscle mass) so i will be taking in Alot of testosterone which is known
to create acne and oily skin. I want to know, if i go on it, will I turn
into a acne monster or will I be ok? I also find that my acne was worse as
my beard was growing in, i fnd the acne is usually around the hair follicle,
but now that my beard has grown in completely it seems as the acne has also
gone away maybe there is a relation? If you could get back to me and tell me
what to do or if i should seriously avoid taking the steroids.

thank you very much!

Answer :

After looking through a pamphlet today at the dermatologist office, I got curious about a certain product that they said patients with discoloring from acne and other scarring had was treated with something called hydroquinone, which I’d only heard briefly about before, but never really knew what it was meant to treat.

Well, hydroquinone, it was interesting to find out, is in a class of chemicals called phenols, of which the polyphenol, the magical ingredient in green teas and olive oil, touted for it’s antioxidant properties, is a member of as well.  Hydroquinone is used in medicine to help fade discoloring of the skin, as in from acne scarring and people with simply uneven skin that want to even their skin tone out more.

However, one interesting fact I also read about this dermatological product use in skin care and scarring/fading treatments is that many are concerned about its possible links to cancer. 

I remember reading this about a skin fading cream a while ago, but I thought it was a different one commonly used in black skin to fade discolorations, and I had thought it was banned, but maybe that was yet another skin fader that was found to be potentially cancer causing. 

At any rate, I think out of sheer avoidance to say the least, I’d probably avoid this product and isntead choose something like chemical peels, dermabrasion and other things that can help to even the skin tone rather than taking chances and potentially increasing your risk of cancer.  I’d rather try an alternative acne treatment any day! 

I was at the dermatologist’s office today for something totally un-acne related.  I went in for an appointment that I actually had to book about two months ago because this dermatologist was so busy ( remember what I said months ago about how people are saying there are now dermatologist shortages, well now I believe it!) 

Anyways, I went in not for cosmetic purposes, but instead to get a full body check for precancerous sun-related spots on my skin, or basal cell carcinomas.

Actually, I went in to get checked for any type of skin cancer, because I’ve already had two basal cell carcinomas removed - one from my forehead, the other from my chest area right between my breasts, and also because my grandfather on my dad’s side actually died of a melanoma skin cancer, the most deadly form of skin cancer because of it’s agressiveness in spreading and difficulty to treat.

Basal cell carcinomas are actually quite common and usually do not result in actual, harmful, spreading cancer, but nonetheless, they should be removed right away if spotted to be safe.  They can come in many forms, but mine both looked almost like they were just light red scars that never faded. 

I actually thought the one on my forehead was a curling iron burn, until I went and got it checked after the redness remained suspicously long, and found out it was a basal cell carcinoma after getting it removed and sent to a lab for a biopsy.

This is just a reminder that the dermatologist office is not just a place to cosmetically improve our skin or get treated for common skin problems, like our all time favorite, acne, but also to get full body checks if you are in a higher risk category for getting skin cancer. If you are fair skinned, that puts you in this category. 

I received the following inquiry from and Acne Magazine reader about a newsletter, and while I do not currently have the capability to send a newsletter to multiple recipients, nor do I have a newsletter in place, I do plan to some day in the future.  In the meantime, see what I’ve suggested to this reader :

Hi Xxxx.  Unfortunately, right now AcneMagazine.com does not have the capability to send a newsletter to multiple recipients, but may in the future. If this happens, I will add your name to the list gladly. 

If you’d like, add Acnemagazine.com to your favorites list though or you can bookmark through a site called http://del.icio.us/ that’s quite popular now (I use it and love it for my favorite sites).  Thanks for your interest!  

AcneMagazine.com Administration

Question :

Do you have a newsletter that you send out? If so, can you please
include my name on it?

Thank you