Acne Magazine

Hmm, good question.  I just was reading up on what some of the newer acne treatments are that might be showing some promise as the new wave of next generation in alternative acne treatments and medicines unrolls as it assuredly was expected to, seeing all the interest in treating acne and our complexions and the attention to skin in the media lately.

I’m sure you’ve heard of light therapy, or red light therapy, which is a gentle pulsed light that is supposed to heal acne and speed overall skin healing before, and I know that we did talk about that type of alternative acne treatment here on this blog before, but this photodynamic treatment is a little different from that, and it is admittedly not for everyone according to its practitioners.

A medication that is called Levulin, which I had never actually heard of, is brushed on to the skin and kept on for about 30  minutes prior to the light therapy.  Then, after the Levulin is washed off of the face, the patient then sits in front of a blue light for about 10 minutes to allow the Levulin to penetrate deeply. 

What does it do though?  Well, Levulin, combined with blue light therapy is supposed to actually help minimize the oil glands below the surface and prevent them from doing so much damage to the acne patient’s skin by reducing their ability to over-secrete the oil that is wreaking havoc on the patient’s face. 

Practitioners say that patients should expect to clear up after about four treatments, which will run them around a little over $1,000, depending on where they live, since geography definitely dictates what one will pay for cosmetic skin care and other cosmetic procedures.  Patients are also not allowed to go in the sun right after treatments, as their skin may be hyper sensitive to the sun’s damaging rays, but this is the same as with chemical peels, many acne antibiotic treatments, Retin-A, and quite a few other acne medications as I understand it, so it is no different in that regard. 

I have to tell you, really quick, that this Friday I’m going in for a combination chemical peel and microdermabrasion at a local medical spa the performs several different esthetic and physician administered skin care treatments. By the way, medical spas are kind of a new wave or new generation of combo medical facilities and esthetic facilities.

As you know, if you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time, I think that there are several natural solutions that will work just as well as medications professionally prescribed for acne, whether you are an adult or teen. 

Of course, not every product is going to do the trick for every person, so as with medical acne medications, there is always an “experimental” period to be had with herbal acne remedy supplements just as many times a dermatologist may play around with a few different types of acne medications for their patients before finding the one that attacks the correct source of the acne in that individual patient. 

For minor cases of acne, decreasing stress levels, treating your face with benzoyl peroxide and other over the counter topical treatments will probably suffice.  But for more severe forms of acne, including cystic acne and forms of acne that could leave serious scarring throughout life and wear away at self esteem, more aggressive treatment is often called for.

Isotretinoin is one such drug for serious cases of acne that don’t respond to mere topical treatments.  Isotretinoin, in the oral form, is known by different trade names such as Accutane, Amnesteem, Clavaris or Roaccutane.  Isotretinoin is derived from vitamin A and is considered a retinoid.   Isotretinoin, the infamous Accutane, works by inhibiting production of sebum and reducing the size of sebaceous glands.  This medication should be taken after eating a high fat meal for better absorption thereby increasing it’s effectiveness.  Isotretinoin is available by prescription here and in the U.K.. 

There is a version of isotretinoin that is a topical preparation on the market also.  Isotretinoin in it’s oral form has a list of side effects that is rather extensive and the individual taking it should be aware of what they are.  Your dermatologist should advise their patients of these.  Isotretinoin is not meant to be taken in combination with Tetracycline.

Another approach to medically treating moderate to severe acne is the use of Tetracycline antibiotics.  They are taken orally and the antibacterial action suppresses acne and rosacea. 

Tetracycline should not be taken with dairy products as it decreases it’s effectiveness.  Tetracycline is available by prescription so you must be under the care of a dermatologist for this mode of treatment.  For acne that is unresponsive to over the counter treatments and persists or worsens, it’s worthwhile to consult a dermatologist to control the acne and save the young person’s self esteem. 

I was on tetracycline for a while as an adolescent, and to be honest, it worked for a while and then just stopped working on me.  I also had to stay out of the sun as it increased my sensitivity to sunlight, and I’m convinced that being on antibiotics for long periods of time now is very detrimental to one’s health and can even cause health issues later in life - this is my personal opinion, but it happens to be shared by many others as well. 

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.

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 just read an interesting article about a possible link between breast cancer and antibiotics, which as we all know, are still commonly used to treat acne.  Antibiotics such as tetracycline, which I was on for quite a while in my youth to help treat my teen acne, are considered antibiotics, and some patients stay on them for years to treat their acne, well into adulthood, some being on them for more than ten years.

The studies done suggest a link between long term, heavy antibiotic use and the development of breast cancer, as much as twice the risk as women who are not on antibiotics, which is very scary and carries many implications between the possible links and risk factors for breast cancer.

It was stressed however, that the results were only from one study, and that if the same results repeated in another duplicate study, that is when serious considerations will need to be made when putting women on long term antibiotics for adult acne or any other ailments which may require the long term treatment of antibiotics. 

This just adds more reasons to try one of the great alternative acne treatments that are currently being marketed online and in stores.  I’d say it may be prudent for women to at least be aware that there could be a link between the two, and to review this concern with her doctor or dermatologist, especially if there is a family history on the female side of the family of breast cancer. 

Wow, how nice would it be to have a dermatologist or a cosmetic dermatologist literally at your beckon call if you were either rich or famous, or both?  The stars always seem to have flawless skin, and we all know that there is no way they are all flawless by nature, and that they’ve almost all had a little help from Dr. Skin Specialist 90210, or even more dramatic help from the cosmetic surgeons. 

Actresses and actors with acne almost never have a blemish that you see them in public with, and oh boy if they do, watch out, because it will make tabloid news the very next day, complete with photo blowups showing the infamous “zit” up close, humiliating them even further.  Think Katie Holmes and Cameron Diaz, who have both had embarrassing blemishes in public, and gotten lambasted by gossip columnists for not being the “perfect” stars they should be.

Well, famous people have dermatologists to prevent their skin from breaking out, and God forbid if they do, they have some techniques that aren’t readily available to us average joes that they can have done and literally kiss a zit goodbye in just one day that would normally be hanging around on our faces for at least a week, and leaving scars to boot.

Dermatologists and cosmetic dermatologists can actually inject a zit with cortisone to get it to go down right away, since it is an anti-inflammatory, and since the zit is not physically forced out, as so many of us know is bad, but cannot resist when faced with a huge red zit on our nose, cheek, or forehead, there is a much less threatening chance of having a scar, or crater in that area.  Yes, a crater, one of those things that we all dread happening that are very difficult to get rid of unless you have agressive dermabrasion to sand it down. 

I was just reading a really interesting and eye opening article the other day about how many patients (I have to admit, reading this, I realize I am guilty of doing this exact thing many times during doctor’s office visits), either fudge or lie about their lifestyle habits, the medications they are on, or their past health history in an attempt to “save face”. 

In other words, they are worried about what the doctor will think of them if they say they drink more than a few times a week, or if they smoke and don’t want to admit it, but really they are just hurting themselves, because doctors are supposed to be objective about these things, and the WANT to know about your life so they can treat you the best they possibly can.  And how can they do that if they do not have the full truth about your life? 

So, anyways, what brought this to this blog is that they mentioned the smoking thing.  Smoking is a very important habit that you need to disclose to your doctor if you are on the birth control pill for acne or if you’re on it primarily to prevent pregnancy (this is usually what it’s prescribed for, but apparently some docs may prescribe it if they feel it will help a patient’s acne and it’s called for), because it can have potentially fatal or life threatening consequences if not disclosed.  The potential for blood clots raises significantly in women that smoke and who are also on the birth control pill. 

This is clearly stated on the warnings and package inserts of the pills, and also most doctors should ask and dilligently check on whether their patients are smokers or not before they prescribe a birth control pill to them.  The real danger comes in when a blood clot travels to a vital artery or vein, this is when it can become potentially life threatening and cause serious health issues. 

So, make sure you disclose whether you are a smoker to your doctor before you go on the pill.  At least then they can inform you of why it might not be such a good idea to go on the pill, and you can make your own informed decision from there. 

There are certain low dose birth control pills that are currently on a consumer right’s group’s hit list to be banned because of impending health risks that they think are significant enough to seek banning. I’m talking about birth control pills in this blog because many women actually use birth control pills, especially certain kinds, to both prevent pregnancy and to help control their acne problem.

Some of the now-popular low dose contraceptive pills are appealing to women because they offer very comparable pregnancy protection compared to try phase or higher hormone dose birth control pills, without the high doses of hormones.  If you’re like me, this sounds like a good deal, because you are getting pregnancy protection without the potential mood swings and other unpleasantries that we link in our mind to higher doses of hormones. 

The consumer right’s group asking for the banning of some of these low dose pills claims that certain ones can cause almost double the risk of blood clots which can be potentially life threatening, especially if they travel to the lung, where they can cause a fast death.  The information I read did not give the specific names of the birth control pills that they are asking for to be pulled unfortunately. 

The low dose pills called into question contain a variable of the typical estrogen hormones used in birth control pills is called desogestrel, so if you are concerned, you can probably look at the package your birth control pills comes in and see if this is one of the active hormones your low dose birth control pill uses. 

We’ve talked a couple times about how the birth control pill has been reported by some women to have a beneficial effect on helping to regulate hormones and correct acne on the face and other areas of the body, but I saw an interesting article on birth control and one of it’s little known possible dangers to women who think they are being adequately protected against pregnancy by the pill.

Apparently there have been some studies correlating situations where the birth control pill has not been as effective as it should be, when it is used by women who are considered to be medically obese.  It is usually true with any medication that its efficacy (effectiveness, concentration in the body), is going to be dependent on how much tissue that medicine has to be effective for.  In larger individuals, they simply have more body mass for a medication to travel through, and can essentially become a weaker form of the medicine due to being “stretched too thin” so to speak.

This might mean a little more regulation as far as having doctors educate their patients on their likelihood of success on a certain birth control pill method, in correlation to the patient’s weight and the likelihood that it will be rendered a little less effective if a patient is heavier.