Adult Acne on the Forefront
On CNN, I watched a piece of their “Health Minute”, which focused on adult acne, specifically on a 51 year old African American woman’s sudden onset of adult acne which happened to be fairly severe. The woman featured in their segment actually ended up opting to go on the serious acne medication accutane to get her beautiful skin back, but often times adult onset acne can be treated through topical means or even by herbal acne supplements, which you know is what we endorse here.Â
The dermatologist featured on the segment said that adult acne can be caused by hormonal changes, sun damage, or even bacteria on the surface of the skin. She said they often will do bacteria tests on the surface of the skin to rule out that possibility and to focus more on the other potential causes of adult acne so they can more accurately and effectively treat it.Â
She also confirmed what we talk about here on AcneMagazine quite a bit, and that is the fact that adult acne must be treated differently from teen acne. Why? Because and adult’s skin contain much less natural oil and moisture than a teen’s skin, and often must be treated with more gentle and nondrying topical acne treatments so that the skin does not become excessively irritated, dry and red, which may actually end up looking worse than the acne itself if the acne treatment is inappropriate for the skin type and age of the patient.Â
It was also mentioned that adult acne may very well be a phase that disappears by itself, since the hormones may regulate, but after a few months if it has not gone away it may be a persistent problem that they would want to treat via self treatment or going to a dermatologist for recommendations.Â
