Acne Magazine : Skin Care, Tips, Treatment Reviews

Hey folks, this is round two of our “types of lasers used for acne and scarring”.  We’re going over a couple of the types of lasers that are commonly used to both help treat acne itself, and to help clean up after the war zone of scars that acne inevitably often leaves behind. 

What really sucks about having acne and acne scarring is that you are never rid of it even after the initial flare up is over.  Many people cope by hiding and wearing long sleeves, or wearing a pound of makeup.  You can go and talk to your doctor today about acne laser scarring removal – consultations are usually free.

Maybe you are someone who wishes you only had acne scars to deal with, and you no longer have to worry about adult acne either – this is the perfect time to ask about laser scar removal since there is no more “active acne” on your skin.  We talked about fraxel lasers and er YAG lasers last time.  Now we talk about pulsed dye lasers.

With the wide array of acne laser treatments that can help treat or reduce it or acne laser removal if it is just too overwhelming for you, and your ready to get rid of it you have many options.  As discussed previously there are various types of lasers for acne, and only your doctor will know what is best for you but you do want to have an idea of what you are looking for.  Some are a little more invasive than you may want, if you think treating it is the right route you will want to look into more on acne laser treatments.

These acne laser treatments can even help prevent further acne, so that way you do not have to worry about a zit popping up on that special occasion you have coming up. If you do not have extremely bad acne but acne that is still quite obnoxious and gets in the way than the acne laser treatment is probably what is best for you.

However, if you are someone who deals with sever acne that causes you great emotional distress or maybe just makes you so self conscious that you do not like to go out that much than it is probably time to look into acne laser removal.

This can be a painful process but it will probably be best so that way you can be done with it. Now this can take more than one time depending on how bad your acne is, and as with any other product results do vary on the individual.

Another type of laser that was tested was the pulsed-dye laser, which was shown to have great results compared to other lasers. These are primarily used for scarring that is hard to get rid of using any other kind of treatment.

It is often used in treating keloid (raised) types of scars as well, and can even reduce post-surgical scarring.  It has also been used to help patients with rosacea and acne rosacea to lessen the redness that occurs from enlarged and inflamed vessels in the face.

Acne is something that is supposed to be something you deal with adolescence and then it goes away. However, for many people that is not the case, they deal with it in adult hood, and it is not just unattractive but in many cases it can be quite painful, depending on the severity.

Several years ago you probably did not have many options, however, now there are many different types of treatment the most popular and successful is acne laser treatments. You even have different types of lasers for acne depending on the type of acne.

You no longer have to live in shame or pain; you have the freedom of a pain free life with acne laser removal. Now you need to know what type of acne you have so that you can find the right treatment for you.

If you dealt with bad acne as an adolescent and now just have scars you want to look into acne laser scarring removal, this is the best way to safely remove the scars. Acne laser scarring removal can be a bit of an enduring process.  Some people may have to go back a few times while others may only need to go once depending on the depth of the damage the acne or acne scarring has caused and on the person’s skin type. 

There are different types of lasers for acne and you will need to speak to your doctor about what is best for you, a laser that goes by the name of  Er:YAG (erbium:yttrium-aluminum-garnet) is said to have a more mild set of side effects than the CO2 laser treatment. Another type of up and coming laser that is used to both  fight acne and reduce the appearance of acne scarring is the fractional laser. 

The fractional laser is a great way to get sections of the face done without the extensive down time that can result from other more penetrating lasers.  It may produce less impressive results than the Er: YAG, but also may reduce the pain and trauma that go with lasers that go much deeper beneath the surface of the layers of skin that comprise your face.

Acne laser scarring removal may seem daunting now but it is a great way to be free from something you have struggled with your whole life if you have deep acne scars and have some money to spend on getting them to be as invisible as possible.

This is part two of our two part articel on what we feel are the problems/issues with the current state of conventional acne medications today here in the US.  We of course, prefer to treat acne naturally, and that is what our Acne and skin care magazine is all about.

We want you to know what options are available, but also what the issues are with some of the medically prescribed options that involve the taking of a pill. There are many great medical alternative treatments out there that don’t require taking a drug, and for those, we are generally pretty excited about and advocate.

However, there are drugs that one must seriously consider before taking when it comes to acne, and that is what this article series is all about.

Another group of drugs that is commonly prescribed for acne are antibiotics.  This may seem an odd choice to treat an inflammatory skin condition.  The purpose of antibiotic prescription for acne is to kill the bacteria that are merely one facet of the overall skin condition.

Patients who use this method often report that their acne comes back twice as bad after they are finished with the drug.  This is because the prescription did not really treat the underlying problem.

Instead it only put a temporary bandage on one small part of the problem.   The main underlying issue for most acne sufferers is hormonal imbalance.  A complementary treatment of lifestyle, stress reduction and diet can often rectify this in itself.

Antibiotics may also seem fairly harmless on their surface. However, there are many risks in taking these drugs for a lengthy period.

The first risk is increased yeast infections.  Antibiotic drugs kill the bad bacteria in the body. Along with that, they also kill the good bacteria which inhabit our bowels.  This often leads to bowel disorders.

Another suspected danger is an increased risk in breast cancer. Studies have shown that women on long term antibiotic prescriptions display a much higher risk for this type of cancer. Long term antibiotic use can weaken the immune system as well.

There is great concern that the use of this drug class may lead to ongoing antibiotic resistance in the general population. We have already seen this happen with the need for increasingly powerful antibiotics in just a few short decades.

This is a two parter, and it is an article that I’ve written about what I feel are the problems with conventional acne medication as it is today. There are some, which are not taken orally, which I think are good, including blue light acne therapy. However, the majority of oral acne medications have drawbacks that I feel acne sufferers should seriously consider before taking them.

Enjoy!

Part 1 :  The Problem with Conventional Acne Medications Today

Acne is a skin condition that affects male and female adults and teens more frequently than ever. It is often treated with conventional medications here in the United States, all of which have unfortunate side effects and repercussions.

This includes the prescription of the most controversial acne medication isotretinoin, better known commercially as Accutane, which is currently only sold by its drug name. It also includes the prescription of various antibiotics as well as topical medications such as tretinoin gel.

Isotretinoin is the most dangerous of them all.  The company that initially created and marketed this drug has discontinued the offering from their product line.  They were so flooded with lawsuits and complaints over the acne drug that they could no longer afford to include it in their product line.

Of course, generic versions took over for the most well known brand name of the drug, and are still available.  The medication is a derivative of vitamin A.  This sounds harmless enough. However, the truth is far from harmless.  It was soon discovered that those who took the drug were at a much higher risk for serious health issues.

At the top of the list was the high risk of birth defects in children born to women on the drug.  The risk was so high that female users of the drug were required to take birth control and be on a national registry list.

Other dangers of this so called acne wonder medication surfaced as well.  Among them were increased risk of serious depression, suicidal thoughts, hair loss, and a range of bowel disorders.  The lawsuits piled up as physicians continued to prescribe the controversial drug.

More to come on this controversial subject. The next time we will be talking about more of the issues with the common prescription of things like antibiotics and potentially threatening acne medications as well.

Yep, you read that right. There is currently a pretty serious shortage of dermatologists here in the United States. In some geographic locations, people may be on long waiting lists just to try to get in to see a dermatologist, unless it is an emergency situation, if you can believe it.

When it comes to skin care doctors, there are orders of priority. Acne, rosacea and other non life threatening skin conditions may have to take a back seat to other potential problems such as skin cancers and other potentially troublesome skin health issues.

That’s why we’re so glad that there are some great natural acne treatment alternatives out there – even more so I guess you’d say than we were before. After all, if this were ten to twenty years ago, you would have been in a tizzy trying to get help for your acne if you couldn’t find a dermatologist.

When I was a teenager, there were very few options to treat acne other than finding a good dermatologist.  You may have heard of the occasional folk remedy or alternative therapy here and there when I was in my early teens and fighting with the worst of my asthma.

Or you might have been lucky enough to get your hands on a great book that told you how to get rid of acne naturally that actually helped your skin. Or maybe you could hope for finding a great naturopathic doctor that prescribed something along the lines of diets, supplement and meditation that just so happened to work for your particular brand of acne.

Even people with some serious issues such as a history of skin cancer cannot get in to see dermatologists for several weeks or months, forcing them to seek alternatives, such as seeing a general practitioner, who may not have as much experience or knowledge when it comes to skin care.

That is quite a travesty. Forget about the fact that those of us with every day nuisance skin problems like rosacea, acne or various rashes and irritations can’t get in, but people with serious health backgrounds related to their skin.

Right now, there may be more people getting into dermatology because they have sniffed out a business opportunity, but until the graduate, which takes several years, there is a severe shortage in many different areas of the country.

Maybe it’s the fact that schooling is so expensive, or that this particular practice has for some reason fallen out of favor as a specialty with those pursuing medical degrees. Whatever the reason, at least we have alternative ways to treat our acne.

I recently got a Groupon offering for a laser acne treatment called Smoothbeam, that I don’t think I had ever heard of before I got the advertised deal.

It seemed like a pretty good deal, but there was one thing about the treatment that sort of bothered me and seemed similar to the actions of a controversial acne drug that we talked about in the last post, Accutane.

It mentioned that the laser’s actions helped to calm the action of the oil glands. I don’t know if that was a permanent thing or not, or whether it just temporarily sort of “disabled” the oil glands so that they didn’t produce as much oil for a while.

The thing that bothers me about any treatment that disables the oil glands, is that you still need your oil glands to produce oil, because as you age, this helps your face to remain smoother looking and be more protected against wrinkles and fine lines.

As you age, the oil (sebum) that your face produces helps your skin to remain more supple looking and younger.  It helps to almost “plump out” the skin and make wrinkles less apparent. 

Those who have taken Accutane in their youth find that they miss this oil production in their older age, as they have to work harder to keep wrinkles at bay because their natural, moisture-retaining oil has been reduced by the drug, and it is a permanent reduction in most cases. 

The Smoothbeam acne laser treatment is supposed to target the underlying oil glands and help to calm them down, and it is also supposed to help reduce the inflammation that makes your skin look red and the acne lesions look larger and more infected. 

The blue light acne treatment also helps in this way, but only it does not target the oil glands, rather the bacteria that causes the acne lesions, so your oil glands are left alone (my preference).

The Smoothebeam acne laser treatment is noramlly priced around $150 per treatment, and there is usually a recommendation that the patient get at least 5 treatments to see improvement in their skin’s breakouts and overall texture and appearance.

The laser has a special cooling device that helps the skin to not feel any of the heat emitted by the laser, since it does use heat to penetrate the skin and get down into the dermal layers. 

There is also, as with many other laser treatments, a special gel that is applied that helps the skin to absorbe the rays better and the laser to penetrate the skin’s layers for maximum effectiveness.

I have been on the pill, give or take a few months, for the past decade.  I find that it not only gives me peace of mind that I will not get pregnant, but it also helps to regulate some of the hormonal acne breakouts that I’ve tended to have since I was in my early teens.  I’m on a low dose pill now, which gives me a steady low dose of hormones.

The low dose pills are actually not “supposed” to help with acne, but some of them do.  There are others that are actually marketed for the purpose of reducing acne breakouts, but there are actually several types of birth control pills that can help you to reduce hormonally related acne breakouts.

Over the past decade or so, I’ve actually grown tired of some of the side effects that the birth control pill tends to have on me. I feel somehow more “alive” and energetic when I’m not on the pill, and it also tends to make me feel thinner and less puffy all the time since it helps take away some of the water weight that often comes with being on the pill, even the low dose estrogenic pills that I’m on.

Like I said, there are certain advantages to being on the pill, like knowing when your period is going to come, havine less severe periods, and of course that all important sometimes side benefit of reducing acne. But there are almost always good with the bad when it comes to most birth control types.

So, I went off of the pill for a few months at a time  periodically, to see how it would affect my body.  It was always fine for the first few weeks of  getting off the pill, but then I would find that I would experience a weird body acne type of breakout for a few weeks into the break off the pill.  It was like my back would break out, or I’d start to find that I’d be getting those painful acne bumps on my face here and there.

It’s almost like coming off the pill sort of shocks your hormones into action after your body realizes that it’s not just the seven day sugar pill break you’re on, and that you’re not going to get back on the 3 week cycle of taking the pills again. 

I’m sure that there is an inevitable flush of estrogen and androgen hormones in the body after this happens, which can lead to breakouts, so just be aware that coming off the pill may have some consequences, but that they also may be short lived.

Here is an article that summarizes why you may want to avoid using antibiotics unless you really need them – especially in the treatment of acne, which tends to be longer term than necessary. 

Antibiotics are an extremely important method for us to fight infections.  They are very useful for this purpose but in recent years, we are beginning to see the emergence of a variety of super”bugs” that are resistant to the use of antibiotics.

As important as the antibiotics are, doctors need to relearn how and when to prescribe them and not to over-prescribe.  This can help to diminish drug resistant infections.  Doctors are being trained to look at individual factors before prescribing an antibiotic.

Physicians should learn to look at the age of the patient and their liver and kidney function.  Doctors should do this to make sure any prescribed medication can be cleared out of the body to avoid any drug toxicity.  Doctors should use caution in prescribing to pregnant and nursing mothers as certain antibiotics can adversely effect the baby either in utero or through the breast milk.

Another area for doctors to exercise caution is to ensure there are no known allergies.  If you are a patient, make sure you inform them about any bad reactions to medications taken in the past.  Doctors and patients need to communicate effectively. 

If a patient has recently been on antibiotics and comes in with a new infection within 3 months, they could easily have a drug- resistant infection.  In this instance, a doctor would need to be informed so they could put the patient on an alternate type of medication.

Another area for improvement in the prescribing of antibiotics is to first get a culture to determine what type of organism is causing the infection.  This should be done when there is uncertainty as to what the causative organism is. 

In many cases, the cause of an infection is not bacterial but is a virus.  When this happens, taking an antibiotic will not cure the infection and could possibly make it worse.  Causes for a patient’s symptoms could also be an allergy or a connective tissue disorder.

The emphasis is on doctors taking responsibility for getting the right medication at the right dose suited to the patient and their individual situation. 

Patients need to be responsible for communicating well to the doctors about facts such as allergies and recent antibiotic use also.  Avoiding misuse and overuse of antibiotics will enhance the ability of this class of medication to work well when we really need them.

Hey there, here is the final part III of our natural vs. medical acne treatments series. It is meant to explore the range of options that those with acne have today to treat and cure their acne until their hormones calm down and they get older. Even then, adult acne is a huge issue today.

We talked about antibiotics, fruits, vitamins, and various other natural methods of acne treatment.  Let’s talk more about the choices out there available to you for you to help get rid of your acne today. 

Your dermatologist is also able to help you achieve clear skin without a prescription. Medical lasers, lights, chemical peels and microdermabrasions are very popular alternative among patients suffering from acne.

Microdermabrasion, typically used for fine lines, can also be helpful in controlling acne and is also very useful for acne scarring treatment.

This procedure consists of using a hand held device that blows small crystals on the skins surface. This acts as a polishing agent. Then a small vacuum sucks the crystals and skin cells off. This helps to polish and soften the skin, while unclogging the pores.

Chemical peels are another drug free option that can be performed. Results are known to be good, but redness and irritation are also a side effect. Chemical peels can also be painful and expensive.

Options such as red and blue light therapy have been known to help eliminate pimples along with white heads and black heads. The blue light is thought to help kill bacteria, while the red light is thought to help with inflammation. People can even purchase these red and blue light machines to use in their homes.

It can then be performed at home twice a day. Although this treatment seems to work best with mild to moderate acne it is one of those options that has very low side effects.

There are many options out there to help fight acne. Herbal remedies are safe and time tested and it would be wise to start with these natural, alternative remedies first. They tend to be cheaper and have the lowest risk of side effects.

But, if medical help is needed, rest assured that there is an arsenal of creams, antibiotics, and lasers that can have you looking picture perfect in no time. But, regardless of whether you choose herbal alternative options or products prescribed by a dermatologist do what feels right for you.

Here is our second part in a three part series on natural acne treatments versus medical acne treatments.  We know that this is a very personal choice, as it was for me. But I finally found my skin savior in Zenmed’s dermacleanse system, and so I know that natural and herbal acne remedies can work, and they can work well, without the negative side effects.

Which is why I am of course a huge proponent of natural skin care in general. Read on for part II of the Natural vs. Medical Acne Treatments article series!

Another alternative acne treatment can be achieved with vitamins. Vitamins such as Zinc, Vitamin A, and Vitamin E also are known for their skin clearing benefits. Zinc, taken by capsule, helps to repair skin and strengthen the immune system.

Vitamin A can also be taken by capsule and promotes a healthy completion. Vitamin E counteracts acne by being a natural antioxidant and can be found in antioxidant-based natural acne remedies like Acnezine. These vitamins can also be found in certain complexion clearing foods as well.

Foods such as bananas and blueberries contain antioxidants that protect the skin from free radicals. In that same token, it is advised to reduce the amount of sugar and refined starches as these seem to have an adverse effect on your skin.

When natural herbal options and an alternative acne treatment have been used without success, medical help may be needed. Medical science has been greatly advanced in recent years and your options have never been better. There are many new topical and oral products that a dermatologist can prescribe.

Herbal remedies for acne are useful, but medical treatments seem much stronger and faster because they just are much more concentrated, and that is both why they can be effective, and why they can have bad side effects. Depending on the severity of the acne, a dermatologist will decide whether to use a topical cream or an antibiotic or a combination of the two.

Some of the most common topical products that a dermatologist may prescribe might be Clindamycin and Erythromycin. These products are applied twice a day and are tolerated very well with a very low amount of irritation.

Another medical acne treatment that can be prescribed by a dermatologist are oral products. The oral acne treatment most commonly prescribed is Tetracycline. This is usually the first oral antibiotic prescribed to patients because of it’s low cost and few side effects. It is taken once a day.

Women are advised to be put on birth control since this acne treatment might cause a birth defect in an unborn child. Those that use Tetracycline products have been known to have a 25% improvement in their skin per month.  However, long term antibiotic use is not advised. It can have some rather serious long term implications, and I’d highly suggest your educate yourself on them.