Are you an acne sufferer? You may be thinking about the many convenient over-the-counter methods for treating your acne. You are not alone. As a go-to solution, most people who are acne sufferers will just go to their local pharmacy and buy medication over-the-counter, based on whatever knowledge or information that they get. It could be recommendations from family members and friends, it could be that impressive sales copy from a magazine, it could be that television ad.
However, it is highly advisable to seek consultation with a qualified doctor before you get your hands on any kind of over-the-counter products. The doctor is able to give you his professional opinion on the best and most suitable course of acne skin care treatment for your case.
You can find large numbers of acne skin care treatment products hitting the shelves regularly, and so deciding on which is the best product can be a daunting task. You may be influenced by your friends. But what worked for your friends, may not necessarily work well on you. Your friends may have different levels of complexity of the acne condition, so it is really difficult to judge. The best way is to do your own research on the active ingredients in various acne skin care treatment medications. Here, I have outlined two of the most popular ingredients in acne treatments.
Benzoyl Peroxide
This is one of the most popular active ingredients in acne treatment medications. Found in ointments and gels, the benzoyl peroxide does it’s job by fighting the bacteria which causes your acne. Not only that, it will also remove dead skin cells that collect on the surface of your skin. What has it got to do with skin cell? Well, it is these dead skin cells which, when combined with sebum, create the unsightly blackheads, whiteheads, and pimples.
Benzoyl peroxide has so far been proven to be safe and effective. It can also be used as an after-care solution to keep your skin free from the bacteria that causes acne. But like all the other ingredients out there, benzoyl peroxide does have one side effect. Prolonged usage of this ingredient will lead to dry skin. However, this can be prevented by slowly decreasing the frequency of the benzoyl peroxide that is applied to your skin.
Salicylic Acid
Besides the benzoyl peroxide, salicylic acid is another popular ingredient used in acne treatment medications. What this acid does is to mainly clear up the dead skin cells which may accumulate too quickly, clogging up the pores as a result. The salicylic acid should continue to be used even after your skin is cleared of acne, to prevent any future outbreaks. Like benzoyl peroxide, the salicylic acid will cause you to have dry and irritated skin.
It is safe to say that the benzoyl peroxide is the most versatile among all the other ingredients for the battle against acne. It can be used in cleansing liquids, lotion, cream and gels which can be applied directly onto your skin. The creams and lotions can be applied onto the affected areas as and when required, while the cleansing medications are usually applied once or twice a day. Just a word of caution : avoid getting the benzoyl peroxide into contact with your eyes, mouth or nose, as it will cause inflammation and some irritation.
Feel free to visit my blog at http://www.acne–treatment.eoltt.com , where I will share more useful information on various acne skin care treatments.
Acne is one of the most common and bothersome skin conditions for adolescence. Although acne itself is not curable, even the most severe cases can be treated effectively. For these sever conditions, various types of acne scar treatment are available if warranted by the situation.
Recent estimates indicate that 85% of the population between the ages of 12 and 24 suffer from acne. The severity and amount of time a person has acne can vary from person to person, but for most of us, it will eventually go away by itself. It is true that even mild acne may affect normal social activities because of the undesirable changes to your appearance, but this is considered more of a nuisance than anything else.
Unfortunately, there are more severe forms of acne with greater consequences. In addition to being painful, sever cases of acne can cause serious scarring. Acne scars can occur in both mild acne or severe acne, but the chances of scarring increases as the acne severity increases. Luckily, you have the option of choosing between several acne scar treatment techniques available.
The purpose of acne scar treatment is to restore your skin to its original appearance. You will find, however, that restoration is not always 100%, but acne scar treatment works to make the scarring almost invisible. There are a variety of techniques available to remove acne scars and each one uses a different approach. It is recommended that you consult with a dermatologist to determine the best technique based on your type of acne and the severity of scarring present.
At this point, you may be asking yourself how acne scars occur. In general, acne scars, and other types of scars for that matter, result from tissue damage. After tissue is damaged, the body will begin healing itself and in the process discourages any chance of infection. Your body sends a special chemical call collagen to the affected area. Sometimes, the collagen is produced in excess and develops into an irregularly shaped fibrous mass resulting in an acne scar.
Other types of scars that may also occur include soft scars, depressed scars, “ice-pick” scars, atrophic macules, and many others. For the most part, these types of scars are caused by the loss of tissue from a particular area.
Injecting collagen under the surface of the scarred skin is one of the most popular acne scar treatment techniques being used. The purpose of this technique is to puff out or restore the skin, which makes the scar much less noticeable. Another acne scar treatment technique is called autologus fat transfer. This process uses the fat from one part of your body for injection into the affected area. This helps to fill in the scar, but since fat is eventually absorbed into the body, repeated applications may be needed.
Other effective acne scar treatments include laser or dermabrasion. Skin grafting and even surgery is a possibility, but these procedures are used only used in the most extreme cases. Hopefully, you will not have to undergo any of these techniques to address your acne, but if scarring is present, with the help of your dermatologist you will be able to make an effective choice.
Acne scars develop after severe cases or when the acne has been forcibly picked or scratched. There are many types of acne scars, each entirely treatable.
The only sure method of acne scar treatment is prevention early on. In general, you should never pick or squeeze acne, especially inflammatory acne or “pustules”. Squeezing forces infected material deeper into the skin, causing additional inflammation and possible scarring.
But there are many acne scar treatment options. All acne scar treatments are short procedures – fifteen minutes to an hour – but recovery times vary from fifteen minutes to many months. Scabbing, redness, swelling, flakiness, dryness, bruising and uneven skin tone are common post-treatment effects. Acne scar treatment can cost anywhere from $50 to over $3000. Ask a dermatologist which type of acne scar treatment is right for you.
Dermabrasion works on shallow acne scars. For decades, sandpaper was used to scrape away damaged skin, allowing new skin to grow in its place, but now machines with rotating diamond edged wheels are used.
Laser resurfacing is a newer resurfacing technique, with the same effects as dermabrasion. Penetration depth into the skin is more easily controlled with a laser than with dermabrasion and other methods.
Chemical peels are designed only for the lightest of cases. It involves application of different types of acid to the skin in order to remove the top layer so that a smoother layer can surface.
Punch techniques are used for deep acne scars. Punch replacement or excision involves removing the pitted scar, followed by a skin graft or suture. Punch elevation, on the other hand, just cuts the scar loose and allows it to float up to the level of surrounding skin.
Subcision is a method whereby the scar tissue is broken up underneath the surface of the skin, forming a pool of blood under the scar. The blood clot helps form connective tissue under the scar, leveling it with the surface.
Dermal fillers are used for deeper acne scars. Material – often collagen or fat – is injected under the scar to bring it to surface level. Injections usually last about six months, although research into the longer lasting materials continues to this day.
I didn’t know anything about acne scar laser treatment to remove, blend, or diminish the pocks and other marks, then. It was the 1980s, and I was not all that focused on beauty (but rather on getting through graduate school, therapy, and three jobs); and I was ignorant about skin care innovations. But I said to the man of the week, a cool guy, actually, for most purposes, that I wanted to sand-paper my face skin, so I could lesson the devastating holes…or at least so I could fill in the open pores, the holes where acne had been.
Think of the face as being made of clay. Imagine that clay face full of big gouges, dents, or blemishes—new and old. Envision taking a stylus or other sculptor’s tool to drag and smear new clay into those pits and over those scars and marks. It seems logical, right? Your new face would be pock-free and smooth again, as it had been in pre-adolescent days. If you think of the new techniques, surgical, cosmetic, and other, used to remove acne marks, you might think in terms of the sculptor’s clay and maneuvers analogy. Then again, you might think more in terms of the face as an unfinished or marked piece of furniture that about to get sand-papered. Not all that “imaginative” or, rather, new, today, though. Now we have such a re-sculpting device: we have acne scar laser treatment.
Acne scar laser treatment, also called resurfacing and also used for wrinkles, works in a particular way. According to one plastic surgery professional, acne scar laser treatment done by a CO2 laser or an erbium laser—which “vaporizes” superficial damaged skin cells. This frees up the existing and healthier collagen to get thicker and to become even healthier.
The emphasis honest practitioners of acne scar laser treatment offer, though, is that such treatment does not “cure” or magically remove all acne marks and blemishing. Rather, it improves the skin condition, diminishing though not completely removing.
Other details are equally important. Depending upon type of acne scar laser treatment, be prepared to accept the treatment as a kind of surgery. You might undergo sedation or anesthesia of some type or degree; you can expect to be in the outpatient treatment room for anywhere from fifteen to ninety minutes; and you will need anywhere from three days to three weeks to wait for the swelling to go down and the abrasions, redness, and/or oozing to stop completely so you can resume typical skin care.
I certainly didn’t envision such a complicated process. Then again, I didn’t come up with the idea all by myself, evidently. And besides, I am not a doctor, nor do I play one when writing.
