Sunday 28 August 2011

Will One Acne Treatment Work For Everyone?

Will one acne treatment work for everyone? The simple answer is no, but you may want to know more. You may want to know why a problem cannot be matched up with a solution that seems to work for others. Unfortunately, there is still much that is unconfirmed about acne and its symptoms.



One thing all sufferers certainly do have in common is that we agree that acne sucks. It can affect your self-confidence in the short term, and in many cases, particularly for those who have already had acne for a while, it can cause scarring that lasts a very long time. Anyone who has acne wants to be able to treat it and treat it quickly. To do that, you need to know which treatment to use. So why isn’t there one acne treatment that will work for everyone?



Acne and Different Skin Types



Different people have different skin types. Your skin may be oily, dry or somewhere in between. This means that not everyone will be able to take the same approach to clearing up their acne.



Someone with oily skin will need a treatment that will reduce excessive sebum production in the skin, or at the very least reduce the oil build-up on the skin surface. Someone with dry skin, on the other hand, does not want to further dry out their skin by using the same treatment as a person with oily skin would use, like a benzoyl peroxide or salt based treatment.



Additionally, people with different skin and body types will get acne on different parts of their body. In some cases, you would not necessarily use the same acne treatment on all of the affected areas on your body. Treating acne on your face, for example, would require a more sensitive treatment than you could use on back acne.



With this in mind, your skin type will be a defining factor in the effective treatment of your acne. Based on your skin type, you will be able to either more accurately choose an acne treatment product or make the appropriate lifestyle changes to clear up your skin.



In either case, knowing your skin type is essential and for most of you it will be fairly obvious if you are at either end of the skin-type ‘scale’. For those with varying skin types or with skin that is somewhere between very oily or very dry can most likely find out from a dermatologist, but for these people the choices of treatment are generally less restrictive.



Acne at Different Life Stages



Not only is there no single treatment that will fix everyone’s acne but, depending on the treatments you use, you may not even be able to use the same treatment at various points in your life. In other words, you may not have one acne treatment that will work for you at different ages or stages of your life.



For example, you will probably not use the same acne treatment as a teenager that you would use as an adult. Adolescence is a time when most teenagers have problems with acne. The influx of androgens or sex hormones within some bodies leads sebaceous glands to produce more sebum than usual. The hormones stimulate the glands that produce oil, and these glands increase their output.



Understandably, this increased output leads to more blocked pores and worsened acne issues. You will need a treatment that is able to handle this excess oil on your skin, in addition to improving your immune system to fight off infection.

When you begin to shift out of puberty, this increased production of oil may decrease, or cease altogether. The treatment that once removed the excess oil and helped you to keep your skin clear may now remove too much oil and dry out your skin. This is not the only time when this hormonal shift will happen.

You will experience shifts in hormones throughout your life. Women may experience decreases in oestrogen beginning in their thirties which can lead to acne. The shifts that happen as a woman enters menopause may also lead to the same problem, as another example. Basically, any shift in hormones may contribute to acne issues and these hormone shifts can happen as a result of stress or even as a result of the foods you eat.

Acne with Different Diets

Your diet can contribute to acne at any point of your life. And let me clarify. It is not that junk food directly causes acne – it doesn’t. BUT, the lack of a healthy ratio of vegetables and alkalising foods in any diet will lead to a human body that is, even slightly, over acidic and an immune system that is less than optimal, consequently leading to increased build-ups of bacteria and a higher susceptibility to infection and illness. Acne, as I have mentioned previously, or rather the main symptom of acne on the skin is resulting infection of a week immune system, excess bacteria, and a susceptibility to infections.

Further more, various medications of other conditions, such as anti-inflammatory drugs for lupus, colitis or something similar, can significantly weaken the immune system. For people that already have a susceptibility to infection, and sometimes even for people that don’t, these types of medications will dramatically increase both the frequency and severity of acne as a side-effect.

It stands, then, to reason that unless everyone eats the same food and use the same medication, or at least very similar diets, people will often need a slightly unique solution to clear up their acne. In most cases, the simplest solution is to change your diet but for some people this is a difficult option so they will need to try varying other acne treatments to counter the effects of their diet, skin and body type.

Will one acne treatment work for everyone? No, but you can certainly still find relief if you tailor your treatment to your unique situation. Even then, remember that your situation can change and that, more often than not, you can change your situation yourself.

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