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Posts Tagged ‘acne’

Best Way to Prevent Acne

In most cases, the teenage years are when most people experience the greatest amount of acne. This is due to hormone level fluctuations and increased sebum (oil) production. The perfect recipe for acne!

So, what is a teenager to do? Prevention is the name of the game when it comes to acne and teens. Unfortunately, because there is no cure for acne, prevention and control are the only things a teenager can do to control acne.

The first step, is to get on a proven acne prevention routine such as the one discussed on our acne prevention page. The next step is to utilize products that minimize acne you may already have and reduces the likelihood of future outbreaks. Those really are the two most important things a teenager can do to combat acne.

If these steps do not work, then a visit to the doctor or dermatologist may be in order. Stronger treatments like antibiotics and Accutane may be needed- only a doctor can know for sure.

For most teens though, simply following the cleanse-treat-protect routine combined with using high-quality acne treatments will be effective in minimizing acne.

There sure is a lot of confusion out there regarding acne prevention. Some people say to scrub your face all day, eat the right foods, avoid sweat, exercise, and on and on. Unfortunately, these have nothing to do with acne prevention.

he numbers really tell the story when it comes to adult acne. 25% of men between the ages of 25 and 44 experience acne. With women the numbers are even higher- nearly 50% of all women between the ages of 25 and 44 get acne.

These numbers tell a story many adult’s do not want to hear. It’s not just teenagers who get acne. Many adults will get recurrences in their 30s, 40s, and beyond.

Another important fact about adult acne is that it is more likely to leave permanent scars. This is because as skin ages it loses collagen, which is responsible for skin’s elasticity. So, with less collagen, it is harder for skin to “bounce back” after the tissue damage that acne can cause.

Acne prevention is best accomplished by following a skin care routine that incorporates three basic steps. In one form or another, the skin must be cleansed, treated, and protected. As long as these steps are followed, a person’s acne should improve.

Acne Prevention Step 1: Cleansing

Due to what we know about how acne is formed, it is pretty clear that it makes sense to gently cleanse your skin on a regular basis. This doesn’t mean scrubbing a way at your face 5 times a day. It means using a good cleansing product to gently wash away dead skin cells and impurities. Also, it doesn’t hurt if your cleanser contains proven acne fighters like benzoyl peroxide or salicylic acid.

Acne Prevention Step 2: Treatment

For optimum acne prevention, the skin must be treated with something that minimizes bacteria (like benzoyl peroxide) or slows down the shedding of skin cells (like salicylic acid). There are many fine manufacturers of these products who will provide guidelines as to how long these products should remain on the face and how often they should be used.

Acne Prevention Step Three: Protection

The last step in acne prevention is protection. By protection, we mean that the face should be properly moisturized and protected from the sun’s damaging rays. There are a great number of quality moisturizers available that contain sunscreens in them. Another thing to keep in mind, many acne treatments tend to dry out the skin a bit making moisturizers extra important.

There you have it, a simple 3 step plan for acne prevention.

Acne is a problem that is more than skin deep. The best treatment for acne will involve nutrition and herbs both internally and externally. In addition to these two elements, the control of acne requires thorough, gentle cleansing. Therefore, there are three steps to beautiful clear skin – internal treatment, external treatment, and cleansing.

The best internal treatment for acne will be one that contains herbal medications. These require no prescription. Many other medications for acne control do require a prescription, and can only be used for severe cases. In addition, many of these prescription medications have serious side effects. Some, like Accutane, have been found to cause depression, and even suicide. Herbs, on the other hand, are natural, gentle, and effective.

The external part of a good acne control system must have certain characteristics as well. For one thing it needs to not be a drying formula, and yet it needs to control the oil in your skin. It should be able to be used on either a severe case or a mild case. It should contain botanical ingredients that heal and strengthen the cellular structure of your skin. The cleanser should remove extra sebum, the natural oil in your skin, which contains the bacteria that cause acne.

The other part of a good quality acne control system is a lotion or gel to treat the blemishes after cleansing the face. This product should be able to unplug the pores. It also should fight the bacteria that causes acne. It should also be formulated with a transdermal delivery system so that the helpful, natural ingredients are absorbed into the skin thoroughly.

Why do you get acne? The actual outer layer of skin is dead, but under this thin layer called the epidermis, the cells are alive and multiplying. Normally your skin is shedding the old cells and replacing them with new ones. The problem happens when too many dead skin cells clump together with the natural skin oils, called sebum, and cause the pores to get clogged.

Acne is a skin disorder that actually starts two or three weeks before the blemish appears. The beginning is the clogging of the pore. The natural bacteria that live on the skin begin to multiply inside the pore since the excess oils can’t get out. Since the body is fighting bacteria, white blood cells arrive on the scene, and inflammation is the result.

Obviously, frequent cleansing is an important step in acne control, since the extra skin cells and oils need to be removed in order to keep them from clogging the pores in the first place. But washing too often can be drying to the skin. For these reasons, skin cleansers need to be very gentle.

There’s a lot more to learn about acne treatments, and you can do it at http://www.natural-acne-treatment.info

Young people don’t require much of a reason to be mean to each other and acne has been a longstanding source of peer-based cruelty.

If you suffer from acne, it’s a safe bet you’ve tried creams. Face it, most of the time they don’t work. You may try makeup, but someone always seems to notice.

There will always be those who have theories as to why you have acne. While opinions vary, there are some things that can help you feel better about yourself and maintain a healthy lifestyle in the midst of acne frustration.

Spending time participating in physical activities and being responsive to a healthy diet may go a long way in giving your body the boost it needs to help provide the overall wellbeing you need during adolescence and beyond.

Participating in physical activities may also prove beneficial in other areas. You may have heard that stress is a condition that intensifies acne production. There are three responses to stress that you should consider.

1. You can do nothing.
2. Your physician may prescribe a drug to reduce your stress.
3. You can participate in meaningful activities to reduce your stress.

Doing nothing relegates you to victim status while the downside of a prescription drug is that, not only is it costly, but many of these stress-reducing drugs actually contribute to acne production. This leaves ‘meaningful activities’ as the best source of stress relief.

Sugar may not be the source for acute acne problems; however, excessive sugar is associated with the rise in blood sugars which may cause inflammation in the skin and a correlating rise in acne production.

While washing your face is an important part of personal hygiene, it may do little to actually eliminate acne production. Facial cleansing is a topical approach, while acne is produced in a different way. “Acne is a disorder resulting from the action of hormones and other substances on the skin’s oil glands and hair follicles. These factors lead to plugged pores and outbreaks of lesions commonly called pimples or zits.” (Department of Health and Human Services)

The Department of H.H.S. also admits, “Although acne is usually not a serious health threat, it can be a source of significant emotional distress.” Source: Questions and Answers About…Acne)

When you struggle with acne you are very aware of the emotional distress it can cause in both personal opinions and social situations.

The truth is acne is a normal part of adolescence and can follow many into adulthood. The food you eat, the amount of stress you have, the cleanliness of your face may have some bearing on your facial blemishes, but you do have options.

The real question you may be asking yourself is, “If acne will still form despite my best efforts, what is my next line of defense?” Knowledge is always a powerful tool in when you are seeking solutions.

The Zeno Acne Clearing Device works in ways traditional creams and oral treatments do not. When you apply cream or take a pill the results may ultimately be positive, but it can take several days for results to be noticed. Zeno can be used at the first sign of acne. The attractive hand held Zeno Device has a battery powered heating unit that warms the tip of the device to a temperature that kills acne bacteria when applied directly at the source of the outbreak. The Zeno Device can be used 2-3 times daily at about 2 ½ minute per treatment.

Serious acne may require a doctor’s visit, but for mild to moderate acne, the Zeno Acne Clearing Device may be the right tool to help you feel better about yourself, put your best face forward, and get back into the game of life – stress free.

If you happen to be searching for the best acne treatments, before you choose your treatment I would suggest that you take a little memory trip back to your teen years, and assess how your skin used to be back then.

For individuals still in their teens, I would recommend that you check and see what is going on in your life right now, and see what may be different or has changed prior to you having your problem skin!

I know most of you may think that it’s all part of nature, or it’s part of your family genetics, and you would like to find that miracle cure! However, the true problem may exist because of your lifestyle choices, and until you fully understand why you’re currently experiencing severe blemish breakouts, or increased blackheads in your pores, you can then follow the cycle of your consistent outbreaks that cause you to feel helpless in your battle.

It’s a fact that our society is placing more pressures on students, and many working individuals. Schools are placing more study loads on the student, and the business industry is downsizing, causing more hours to be placed on the employees! What this does to your body and your mind is that it places an incredible load of stress on you, as well as the affects, which can easily change your daily lifestyle.

You may be asking, how does this all come into play with my acne condition, and how do I connect these facts to my acne treatment?

There are many studies out today indicating that “stress” and the way you take care of your body, and the products you may be using are a contributing factor to your pimples and blackheads. If you can look back when you had good skin and see what you may have been doing differently, you could hopefully make some lifestyle changes for the better. With these changes, you could possibly see positive results, and avoid having to take acne medications prescribed by your dermatologist.

There are many elements that can be contributing to your skin blemishes, and the ingredients in the select treatment product you’re using can also be the cause of your skin irritation, which is causing your reoccurring pimple breakouts. So let’s look at some topics that have come up in some studies, and see if we can clarify some of the elements that may be affecting your current lifestyle.

Facial Medications, Caffeine, Stress, And The Sun! What Do They Have In Common, And How Does It Affect Your Blemish Situation?

I’m not a doctor, and I don’t have any professional skin care background, but what I do have is a common sense approach to issues. When I read about certain acne products, and also the food and drink we consume on a daily basis, plus the type of life we live makes sense to me when we mix it all together and try and link it to our skin condition.

First we should talk about coffee, pop and alcohol, and see what the connection is to skin problems. In my opinion, the way I interpret coffee, pop and alcohol is that they contribute several elements to your body that assist in major changes to your skin.

Caffeine and sugar in coffee and pop, plus alcohols are partial diuretics that assist in drawing more water out of your body than bringing water back in, plus they’re a stimulant and can prevent you from getting the recommended amount of sleep that your body needs, which ranges from at least 7 to 8 hours per night. What this all means is that by consuming these products daily, they could be changing the entire dynamics of your body, and affecting you dramatically without you even realizing the changes.

What happens is this: your body may become over stimulated with all these items going through your system, and either consumed separately or in combination, your skin may seriously become affected by these products. Depending on your body’s tolerance level, your reactions could be reflected by the daily consumption.

Let’s look at the connection of the cleansers, creams, and acne cosmetics you’re currently using, and see why some may not work to prevent your acne breakouts or increased blackheads. When taking a common sense approach to the ingredients, avoid any product that will shrink your pores! Now this information may contradict products that say they reduce pore size, and make them look less visible.

What that means I don’t know. But when you think about it for a moment, if you have a product that shrinks your pores, that’s going to increase the chance that you will have more oil trapped in your skin. The more of the skin’s oil that is potentially blocking your pores, the higher chance you’re going to form blackheads and whiteheads, plus the trapped oil will be tasty food for bacteria that feeds off the oil and dead skin, eventually turning it into a nasty blemish. Think about that, and if it makes sense to you, then avoid products that have any astringent agents in them.

The sun is one that I have been very confused about for a long time, but again when it was explained to me, it made total sense, and now I really understand the benefits and the damages it can cause. The sun actually can help you in your battle on acne; however, the time you spend in the sun can make the big difference. I found out that the sun actually aids in killing bacteria on your skin, but you should limit your time to approximately 15 minutes per day, because when you spend long periods of time in the sun, it will eventually dry and reduce the pores in your skin. Now like above, what happens when the pores shrink? Absolutely, trapped oil and the formation of zits!

Stress, in my opinion, is the biggest contributor to your body’s lifestyle changes, and believe it or not, it seems to tie in with everything above, because stress is caused by many elements from the types of food you consume, to the everyday lifestyle you lead with your work and play.

Again, I’m not a doctor, but even with my own body I notice that if I don’t get enough sleep, or I worry about a project that has to be completed, and the everyday choices I make in cleaning my skin all is in some way a contributor to stress, and the changes in my body. So when you sit back and see if you can adjust anything in the way you live your life for the better, you may be on the right track to not only a healthier lifestyle, but also clearer, blemish free skin!

There are several criteria for acne treatments for teenagers. Number one – they must have a high rate of success. Two, they should be simple to use. And number three, they must be safe for your skin, preferably good for sensitive skin.

Preferably, they should also be fast acting. And low cost. Teens and parents should not have to spend hundreds on dermatologists and facial peels.

There are two systems that I think qualify for serious consideration for those seeking acne treatments for teenagers.

The first was created by a Board Cerified Plastic and Reconstructive surgeon, Dr Beckman. He has a background in chemistry as well as 24 years of experience in plastic surgery, where he developed expertise in the principles of skin restoration. He has developed a two step system, which is by its nature simple to follow.

The first step is an antimicrobial wash that gets rid of 99.9% of all bacteria on the skin’s surface for up to 12 hours. This reduces the chance for infection to occur, and many people using his system have found that even if they were on oral antibiotics or accutane that this alone was able to help prevent future acne outbreaks. This cleanser is also excellent for removing dirt and oily deposits on the skin.

The next step is a topical medication designed to encourage the skin’s natural process of exfoliation. This treatment contains salicylic acid and lactic acid, which remove dead skin cells and oily plugs from the sebaceous glands to prevent acne by unclogging pores. Lactic acid encourages the growth of new collagen and elastin, whilst restoring the skin’s natural PH balance.

This acne treatments for teenagers system has been used by people with all types of acne – from mild to severe cystic acne. It is 100% effecive on people with Grades 1 & 2 acne, 80-90% successful with Grades 3 acne, and very effective in controlling new breakouts with Grade 4 acne sufferers. Users on prescription medications like accutane were able to cut back on their dosage or stop using it altogether.

In a study of high school and college students over 12 weeks, all participants had some degree of improvement, and most improvements were within a two week period. So the Reversion system is fast acting. Grades 1 & 2 acne sufferers achieved total control of their acne, and Grades 3 & 4 achieved dramatic improvements.

Click Here to Buy or Find out more about Reversion’s acne treatments for teenagers

The next system of acne treatments for teenagers that I recommend is by Zen Med. Theirs is a 3 step system, with a little bit of a different approach to Reversion. They have two topical applications like Reversion, a cleanser and an acne treatment medication. But they also have herbal acne supplements included in the package.

This is an important part of the treatment, and one of the reasons they have such a high success rate with many people’s acne clearing up for good. The Zen Med system was developed using the 3000 year plus expertise of Traditional Chinese Medicine, combined with modern therapeutics. Theirs is an all natural, all herbal preparation that works on mild to severe acne. It does not contain drugs and there are no side effects.

Many people who tried traditional prescription medication but did not achieve satisfactory results on these were very happy with what the Zen Med system did for their skin. One of the big pluses in this acne treatments for teenagers is that most people using it stopped their acne at the source within 1 to 3 months – this is not a treatment that you will have to be using for the rest of your life.