I have a funny story to tell you. When I got married in Vegas, I brought along a TON of Five Hour Energy. Five Hour Energy are these little bottles of hyper caffeinated, vitamin B12, otherwise known as Niacin, loaded energy drinks. I figured if I was in Sin City and getting married, I didn’t want a little thing like getting tired getting in my way of partying all night and enjoying the amenities that Vegas had to offer.

I also figured that I didn’t now how I’d sleep in the hotel, because sometimes sleeping in a foreign bed really interferes with my sleep. Five Hour Energy, when I take only a half bottle like I should, doesn’t make me break out with acne like other energy drinks such as Red Bull do. I think it’s because it has more B12 and other energizing ingredients and doesn’t rely on pure stimulants and caffeine like a lot of other energy drinks do.

What I didn’t count on though, was the side effect of drinking too much vitamin B12 was. I drank a few of the Five Hour Energies in one day, and that’s when I started to notice all these little bumps on my shoulders and my back and my chest. It was sort of like really mild acne bumps, not inflamed, but almost like a rash.

I didn’t put two and two together until long after we got back from Vegas though. I ended up reading about how Niacin, when consumed in too much quantity can actually make your skin flush and also break out in rashes in different areas.

So what I had experienced was a sort of “overdose” of Vitamin B12! Just a word to the wise, Five Hour Eenrgy may not make you break out with acne per se, but it can definitely make you break out in a rash that you may not know what it’s from.

For example, one of the things I’m afraid of is all the preservatives and chemicals that can potentially harm the skin over time. For that reason, I recently purchased an all natural sunscreen by Dr. Mercola that provides protection by using only natural minerals.

You can tell by the consistency, which is rather chalky, that he’s not using the massive amounts of toxic cohesive agents and emulsifiers and preservatives that most shelf brands do, and I don’t mind the texture at all, it reminds me that I’m using a really natural product. And yes, I’ve used it on my face, and it was totally fine, didn’t make me break out on iota.

The FDA is now going to regulate what skin product companies can actually call a sun block. These products now have to protect against BOTH UVA and UVB rays to be called a “sun block”. Most products don’t tell you this, but they usually only protect your skin against the sun’s burning rays, which are the UVB rays. This is good of course, but what they don’t tell you is that the UVA rays, which they provide minimal protection against, actually are the ones that cause skin cancer and also cause wrinkles.

Oh, and here’s the kicker. UVB rays, which sun screen blocks quite efficiently now, actually is the type of ray that makes your skin produce the ultra beneficial vitamin D. That’s right, you’re mostly blocking out the very ray that, yes, while it can burn your skin, it also is the one that makes this very important vitamin that more and more is being discovered about every day.

The FDA wants sunscreen makers to be more transparent and explanatory in their labeling. They are also concerned that these SPF numbers are misleading to consumers, in that they lead them to believe the higher the number the more protection they are getting. This is not necessarily always true, and there are many more caveats to the story than just a number that tells you what level you are being protected at by your sunscreen. More to come on this important issue!

What is eczema, first of all? Well, it is a skin condition where the skin becomes inflamed and there may be patches of red, dry itchy skin. Some forms are more difficult to treat, and they involved little nodules that pop up as well as the redness and irritation, and that is the form of eczema that seems to respond well to a certain type of concentrated beam laser therapy on the affected areas of the skin.

The therapy involves a highly concentrated beam of UV light, the same type that you get naturally form the sun’s rays, on the affected area. It can also be used on those with vitiligo, the skin lightening condition that Michael Jackson was thought to have, and psoriasis. Patients who did not respond well or did not respond at all to the typical treatment of topical steroidal creams for inflammation, responded to this type of laser treatment, so it is very promising news for those with hard to treat eczema that they may actually have other options that work.

So, to pay for so many shortcomings of banks, tanning salons will now have to pay a tanning tax if they offer indoor tanning to the government. I guess you gotta recover your money some how, huh? What I do find a little interesting is that they chose to tax an unnecessary, fun thing that lots of teens do and there has been such a drive to stop teens from tanning, I’m thinking that they did this on purpose to sort of kill two birds with one stone.

Although I hardly doubt that many young girls will stop going tanning just because of a tax. My guess is that the tax will be somewhat negligible when the cost is inevitably passed on to the consumer, and they’ll barely notice the difference in the cost of their tanning sessions.

Should be interesting to see how this shakes out. I don’t think it will force tanning salons to go under or anything like that, as they will definitely find a way to pass the cost on to their customers, but they may have a little price adjusting to do for a while when they try to figure out their new strategies for covering costs.

Don’t get me wrong, I know acne was still an issue back then as well, but now you see more and more adult females and males with really bad acne, and it begs the question : what’s changed over the past few decades to explode the number of acne cases and make it the number one skin complaint that dermatologists hear?

I’ve thought about this a lot, especially because I happen to be in the top demographic of people who have seen a steady increase in acne over the last few decades, women over 30 years old.  This is particularly perplexing to a lot of specialists because your hormones are supposed to have calmed down quite a bit by the time you hit your thirties and your forties, and yet they are seeing more and more adults coming in with moderate to severe acne.

The reasons, I think can be one of a few, or perhaps they are more a synergy of many of these.  The first reason I can think of is the food we eat. We are eating FAR more processed foods than we were before, and even our meats and dairy cows and the chickens that produce eggs are being given hormones and synthetic inoculations of antibiotics. Perhaps this is all building up in our system and we are seeing it shown as acne on our face and other regions of the body?

Another reason I can think of are the generally higher stress levels and faster pace of life we are now living. Stress directly affects our hormones, and can spur on the androgens that cause acne lesions to form on the face.  I tend to lean more toward the food theory though, it just makes sense that we might be seeing a backlash from the synthetic hormones, antibiotics, and goodness knows what other chemicals are injected into our food supplies.

The dermatologists always recommended one of three different types of facial cleansing bars. This was before liquid cleansers and cream cleansers were all the rage, when bars were still popular to wash the face.  They would recommend either the Neutrogena amber bar soap, the Purpose bar soap, or the Cetaphil cleanser, which I never understood.

With Skin iD, you can go online and complete a questionnaire about your skin that takes roughly 5 minutes to complete.  Neutrogena gathers information about your skin, your lifestyle and your problem with acne, and then formulates a custom skin care regimen out of their acne skin care products, specifically targeted to your skin and your personal situation so that it can be effective for what you need.

The Skin iD products appear to range from cleansers to treatment creams, to astringents and other skin soothing products.  Perhaps they are built with the three skin types in mind as well, but I can’t really tell, but those three skin types are oily, dry, and combination. I think a good part of the people who suffer from acne have combination skin, and another good chunk probably have oily skin.

It is important to get the right combination of products for your skin type, so I think this is a great idea. Has anyone tried any of the Skin iD products yet, or had a skin evaluation with Neutrogena?

These cysts are not in point of fact actual cysts although, so no one should fear or believe they are life threatening matters. This form of acne generally happens on the face, upper body or back and tends to be bigger than your regular average pimple.

In addition to these facts, cystic acne tends to be extremely painful or produce constant exceptional aching or throbbing underneath the skin! Often times, you won’t even be able to see the actual cyst surface for days, you’ll just see a lump swelling under your skin. Cystic shapes of acne frequently take place when the grouping of too many dead skin cells collected and produce blockage on a deep level to the pores.

If all of these reasons of cystic acne are current in now about everybody than common resistant systems may in fact be playing a big role in avoiding the expansion of this kind of acne. The degree of infection under the skin and the extent to which the cystic acne develops depends on a persons hormone levels and their immune system’s ability to quickly heal the acne postule.

When facing severe cystic acne, you are going to feel like to stay away from the similar things that somebody dealing with usual acne would. It is particularly vital to pass up squeezing and picking at your sores, it forces them to a large extent worse. Keep your hands away from touching your face as well so additional bacteria doesn’t aggravate the situation.

Do not pick or force the cystic acne postule to break, as this will only produce further and more severe scarring that would happen without the forcing open of the lesion.

This kind of scarring can run off very severe substantial marks so it is incredibly vital to do instant treatments on them. Scars from this sort of acne could be permanent, especially if you force them to a head before they are ready. There are of course shots available at a dermatologist’s office that can make them go down fairly quickly if this is an emergency situation as well and you have a big event soon.

You know, that kind of stuff, or along that vain of thinking. The Cyclops Zit, as I like to call it, is sort of one of those types of things. It’s a slap in the face – a sort of “aha, fate has control over your life, not you” kind of things where you realize that you don’t always have 100% control over what happens in your life, including how your skin tends to behave, especially before big events.

What is the Cyclops Zit?  It is a nasty, bug, red bulging zit that happens to appear (usually at the most inopportune times also) RIGHT SMACK DAB in the middle of your forehead, so you look like one of those mythical creatures that have one single eye, right in the middle of their head. You know what I mean, I’m sure you’ve seen their likeness in cheap horror and sci fi movies growing up as a kid.

One thing I’ve noticed about these types of zits is that they tend to pop up over night, and they may even pop up when you don’t have a trace of acne anywhere on your face, what’s up with that? I remember the last time I had one, I suddenly wanted to itch the middle of my forehead really badly, and so I did. Well, after I itched it, I noticed a tiny little bump had appeared within minutes.

I also noticed that the whole area was red and inflamed. The very next morning I woke up to find a jumbo sized Cyclops Zit on my forehead – right in the middle.

The worst part about these prominent zits that pop up on your forehead is that they are so conspicuous. It’s not like you can easily camouflage them out of being. You can put a ton of cover up on them, and they still manage to come through and be noticed, because of where they’re located. You also feel extra self conscious because of where they are, as if you have a bright flashing light on your forehead, saying “look at me!”

Acne, out of the top five skin disorders, is still the most common skin condition that is seen by dermatologists. Although we have some great alternative acne treatments at our disposal, there are also some medical ones that can work, like blue light therapy, certain laser therapies, and other topical treatments, and of course there are medications, which I’m a little more opposed to only because they are mostly either controversial in their safety, or they are antibiotic in nature, and taking antibiotics over a long period of time, I believe, it very detrimental to your health.

So, what are the other skin disorders that hold top court along with acne? They are as the order follows, after acne : eczema, seborrheic dermatitis, skin cancer and psoriasis. You may even have one of these in conjunction with acne, as some of them are also inflammatory in nature, as so many skin conditions are.

Psoriasis is a skin disorder that can appear on the skin or on the scalp, and of course skin cancer has become more prevalent since our sun’s protective ozone layer has worn away with the ravages of environmental pollutants and other conditions, and of course, because of the advent of the tanning bed and young girls going out and getting burnt in them over and over.

The most common type of skin cancer, and luckily the most treatable, is still basal cell carcinoma, which is one that I’ve gotten removed a couple of times out of safety precautions. To avoid basal cell carcinoma, avoid direct, prolonged sunlight, and use sunscreen as often as you can.

For example, I indulge in chocolate about once a week .Sure, sometimes I go a little nuts and over do it and end up sugar bombing out, but I know how bad I feel and how my skin reacts when I do that, so I’ve really cut those chocolate and sugar pig outs down to a minimum now.

I remember when I was younger, I could probably have easily downed a whole quart of chocolate ice cream, but now that I’m a little older, my sweet tooth and my overeating gene have kind of taken a back seat to common sense.

Valentines Day is a huge chocolate time for me. My husband knows that all I want for V Day is chocolate. I tell him not even to bother with anything else. No, I don’t even want a fancy dinner and a bottle of wine or flowers, I really just want some of the best chocolate I can get my hands on, something really decadent, like chocolate covered strawberries or pretzels, or turtles from one of my favorite chocolatiers around here, Malleys chocolates.

As long as I get some chocolate to pig out on, it’s all good from there on V Day. What do you think – are you guys gonna get some chocolate from your special one on V Day?