Acne Magazine

Acne is the most noted and problematic for people in their teens, but it can occur in individuals in their twenties and thirties too. There are some simple steps you can take to keep acne under control and discourage new pimples and blackheads from forming.

Acne rosacea is a complexion disorder that effects adults, not just teenagers. Rosacea is a redness in the middle of the face and it is caused by tiny blood vessels that become enlarged. Rosacea may occur just by itself, with the redness, or it may occur with pimples and blackheads, and then it is called acne rosacea.Treatments for rosacea may be either topical or taken by mouth or a combination of the two. Some physicians will prescribe Retin-A and some will prescribe cortisone creams for topical use. Orally, antibiotics such as tetracycline can be prescribed for controlling acne rosacea. Another mode of treatment prescribed by doctors is Accutane.

Mineral oil, in makeup, lotions, sunscreens, or any other topical solution that you may be applying to your face or other areas of your body where you have acne is actually probably one of the worst things you can put on your skin for acne. 

Mineral oil is extremely comedogenic, meaning it will and does clog those hopefully clear pores.  This is why when you are searching for a foundation (if you’re a woman, foundations that are liquid), make sure you steer clear of any liquid foundations that contain mineral oil. 

Believe me, although mineral oil has proven to be bad for the complexion, some foundations still have mineral oil in them.  Opt instead for “oil free” or look at the ingredients on a foundation you may find intriguing to make sure it doesn’t have mineral oil in the ingredients. 

I remember one of my first experiences with mineral oil was when I was very young, probably only 15 years old, and was just beginning to experiment with foundations and powders, and purchased a really cheap foundation, it may have even been Wet ‘n Wild for those of you who’ve ever purchased the notoriously inexpensive and cheaply made cosmetics. 

The foundation, it turns out, had mineral oil in it and I broke out almost instantly from putting the stuff on my face.  Most well made, higher end foundations today will not have this as a main ingredient, but it’s still worth checking so something you use to make yourself look prettier doesn’t, in the end, make your face break out like never before. 

One thing I noted is that I got the smaller bumps allover from the mineral oil instead of the larger more infectious zits, but it still made my face look terrible and rough. 

Yes, some swear that avoiding dairy products helped their acne, but they also have usually limited their sugar intake and also modified other critical parts of their diet in an effort to synthesize their diet with a healthier lifestyle for more vibrant and breakout-free skin as well.

Where does the idea that avoiding dairy helps acne come from?  I believe it mostly originates in theories of traditional chinese medicine, where cheeses, milks and other dairy products are supposed to be one of the greatest overall “system cloggers” which interfere with hormone balance as well as the body’s overall balance and well being. 

Cheese and dairy is thought to slow and hinder the digestive process because we do not have adequate facilities to properly digest dairy products after we are infants (supposedly we do not carry the specific enzyme to digest milk and other dairy products correctly after the age where we would normally stop breastfeeding). 

Because we supposedly do not have the right stuff to digest dairy products correctly into our adulthood, Chinese medicine’s theory is that dairy actually makes our bodies toxic by allowing excess toxins to build up in our bodies and one of the outcomes of those excess toxins is - you guessed it - acne. 

It does make some sense, and since I do believe that milk is very hard to digest, at least for me who I admit has a bit of a lactose intolerance problem, I would try it, and in fact have converted to soy products instead of cheeses, sour cream, etc.  I’m not sure that it helped my acne though.  I think acne, especially the kind that is so hormonally ingrained like mine, requires a more comprehensive approach to treatment. 

Our tendency, as people who have struggled with acne on and off, or unfortunately some of us all “on” our whole lives, is to over dry our skin, scrub too hard, and otherwise try to “wash the acne off” our faces and other areas of our body where we have acne. 

I’ll admit, when I first started suffering breakouts around 14-15 years of age, my first inclination was to use the most drying products, because I thought, well, if I can get all the pesky oil off my skin, then I won’t have any more acne?  Well, there’s more to acne than just oil.  It has to do with the internal workings of our endocrine (hormone) system, and the way this translates into our skin and our oil production. 

I thought at this young and naive age that drying and cleaning was the answer to getting clear skin.  Boy, was I wrong.  Not only did my skin look scaly, painfully red and irritated, I also broke out worse because the over-drying I had subjected my skin to had unwittingly made my skin’s oil production glands kick it into higher gear. 

You see, when your skin is dry, that’s what your oil glands are there for, is to secrete a protective and moisturizing layer of oil to protect and shield the skin.  You’ve actually just sped up the oil production process if you’ve over-dried your skin. 

Stay away from products with a lot of alcohol in them, and be sure you’re not spending too much time lathering your skin when washing it, this is the number one thing that will cause it to dry out excessively. 

Also avoid using extremely drying astringents or lotions that are designed to absorb extra oil if you intend to also use other drying products.  If you’re using it as one of the only means to absorb oil, then that’s fine. 

We talk a lot here at AcneMagazine.com about how stimulants in diet pills and other energy boosting drinks and supplements can definitely have a negative impact on our skin, well, especially mine since I’ve had major skin eruptions after taking dietary supplements meant to help me lose weight or control my appetite.  Well, a newer weight loss pill called Reductil is a one a day diet pill that helps to decrease the appetite enough to cause a clinically significant amount of weight loss in its subjects over time. 

Not only that, this intriguing diet drug is safe for long term use, which means it can be used for up to twelve months, whereas most diet pills are approved to be used only for weeks at a time because their side effects can have such negative and unappealing side effects, and also long term safety is a huge question in many other diet pills besides Reductil. 

The best thing about Reductil is that it is encouraged that the patient take the diet pill over a longer period of time, because statistically this is always the way that weight comes off and stays off permanently.  Rather than a quick fix that relies on stimulants that many times increase your appetite by twofold, Reductil focuses more on long term weight loss, not yo-yo dieting and quick fix diets that beg for weight to come back on right away.  It’s definitely worth looking into, as to me it sound like one of the safest, most effective long term weight loss aids on the market today. 

I was shopping on Amazon.com the other day, and ran across this book, which received very high reviews and marks from readers, about how women of any age can and should cope with acne.  I think the book is a great idea, especially considering the fact that more women than ever now are suffering from acne well into their thirties and forties these days thanks to higher stress levels, and it may also be attributed to the higher levels of hormones in our food, as well as other outside factors that are beyond our control. 

It discusses those things that most mature women aren’t sure of if they still suffer from acne, such as what products are appropriate for aging skin, skin that is approaching menopause, skin of a woman who is pregnant, and generally, adult female skin.  In other words, what products will treat the acne on a full grown adult woman’s skin without completely ruining her skin around the acne, or helping to accelerate the aging process elsewhere by drying out the skin and irritating it in the most delicate of areas. 

I know for myself as an adult woman, one of the biggest challenges is to find products that I can use that will both be effective in preventing and treating existing acne, but also be good for my skin allover, and gentle.  The author of the book approaches such subjects as how to buy over the counter products that won’t ruin your skin but will also be effective at treating their acne, how to emergency-treat acne lesions that pop up virtually overnight with products that you may already have in your bathroom or even your kitchen, and how to keep acne scarring to a minimum and also to reduce the appearance of current acne scars.

And, best of all, she goes into alternative acne treatments such as herbal acne supplements (such as Acnezine), vitamins for acne and for the skin, and other alternative, non-prescription or pharmaceutical ways to get rid of adult acne in women.  Who knows, this book also sounds like an adult male with acne may benefit from reading it, but it is geared toward women’s skin.  Maybe she’ll come out with a Man’s Guide to Dealing with Adult Acne too! 

I’ve recently decided that, since I’m on birth control anyways for the simple fact that I do not want to have a kid at this point in my life, I’m going to make the switch back to OrthoTriCyclen from my current low dose birth control pill, alesse.

Rosace and acne rosacea are often a very difficult-to-treat skin condition that is easily aggravated by certain things, even certain foods and life circumstances, and so it must be carefully controlled or else it can make the face appear very red, flushed, and also can be extremely inflamed and have acne lesions if you happen to have acne rosacea, which is acne postules combined with rosacea. 

Rosacea is a skin disorder often present in those of European descent, for reasons not entirely understood, by hypothetically because European skin is much more fair and tends to be sensitive to a larger variety of environmental factors than, say, someone with a darker complexion.

I wanted to talk about a newer product from a line that we often talk about, Zenmed, which is an organic and all natural line of skin care.  It’s a skin supplement, and many people with rosacea are reporting very nice results after using this supplement for a while.  It basically contains a lot of ingredients that help with inflammation as well as help strengthen the skin from the inside to provide a greater appearance on the outside, and reduce the redness and inflammation that is hallmark of the rossace skin condition. 

There aren’t really too many natural supplements geared toward rosacea, but there are a lot of dermatological treatments that are given for rosacea, including a combination of different antibiotics and also various forms of light therapy are used to help reduce the redness as well as help to shrink the enlarged capillaries that are responsible for the look of rosacea, which is a essentially a flushed look during periods of irritation. 

But who wants to remain on antibiotics indefinitely?  Especially with antibiotic resistence, and now new evidence suggesting that prolonged use of different antibiotics can actually be linked to breast cancer.  That’s scary enough to seek out natural rosacea and acne rosacea treatment alternatives, for sure.