:Clear Skin Blog

It’s all vitamin B5 right? Well, not exactly. Pantothenic acid, typically found in the form of D-calcium pantothenate (basically all pantothenic acid includes some calcium), is the more common and basic form of vitamin B5 that you will typically find in supplements. One the other hand, Pantethine is the biologically-active form of B5 that is the direct precursor to Coenzyme A. Pantethine has already gone through the chemical reactions that prepare B5 for conversion into Co-A, and as such has a much higher rate of conversion upon entering the body (approximately twice the rate of standard pantothenic acid).

Since pantethine is more efficient at producing Co-A (which is needed to break down skin oil and prevent acne), why not just use it instead of pantothenic acid?

For one thing, there are some benefits to pantothenic acid that pantethine lacks, namely the enhanced circulation that aids in wound healing. However, the more important differences lie in the practical concerns of concentration and cost. Pantethine is very tricky to manufacture in high concentrations. At concentrations above 50%, pantethine is only stable in liquid form (this would require a gelcap), while in a powder form that could be used for tablets, the concentration drops to about 25%. That means that to get 250mg of pantethine, you might need to take a 500mg gelcap or a 1000mg pill (the highest concentration I’ve seen is an 80% liquid). Even if pantethine is twice as effective as pantothenic acid, you might still have to take twice as much. In contrast, pantothenic acid almost always has a concentration of about 92% in tablet form (with 8% calcium).

Then there’s the simple matter of cost. I’ve mentioned that pantethine is tricky to manufacture, and this shows up on the bottom line. On the production side, pantethine is anywhere from 5-7 times more expensive than pantothenic acid. Even if we absorb some of that cost, it still means charging a much higher price to our end consumers, something that neither of us like. So basically, unless pantethine becomes much cheaper to produce, it doesn’t make much sense to use it in our formula. We would have to switch from time-release to geltabs in order to even make the switch worthwhile, and there’s not enough evidence to suggest that these changes would really benefit our end users. Personally, I think some individuals would benefit from pantethine, simply because some people’s bodies are not as efficient at processing vitamins. However, for the vast majority of users pantothenic acid already works amazingly well. Better to stick with pantothenic acid, even if it means taking a few more pills, than pay three times as much for something that *might* give slightly more convenient results. Moreover, once you get past the initial higher intake period, most users can maintain acne-free skin on a low dose, so the benefit is really only temporary.

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While most megadose B5 users make the transition to time-release without any problems, I’ve noticed that some former megadose users have complained of needing more than our recommended dosage to stop acne, and sometimes still not getting as dramatic results. As far as I can tell, this could be due to two factors: Firstly, with people who have been megadosing for a while, their bodies may have adjusted to the abnormally high supply of vitamin B5, and simply not respond as well to the reduced dosage, even if it is more potent due to the time-release mechanism. Secondly (and this is the one I suspect is more true), most megadosers take their doses quite frequently throughout the day. Even with a time-release pill, the release of a vitamin is not perfectly constant, and may not have the same potency as more frequent intakes of a standard pill. This can be solved by taking the vitamin more frequently, but that somewhat diminishes the benefit of time-release (although you would still likely need less since it would be more efficiently absorbed).

I’m a former megadose B5 user myself, but my acne was already more or less gone by the time I started using time-release, so my body’s requirements were probably lower. For people who have not already been megadosing, I expect that time-release will be more readily effective (I certainly have a lot of customers who are seeing good results). We may be introducing a new smaller-size tablet in the near future, so that tablet will probably come with a recommended intake cycle of four times per day for best results. This may make the transition for previous megadosers easier.

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There’s nothing that sparks my interests like useless gadgets that I don’t really need.

I guess my ultimate useless gadget at the moment would be a really good virtual reality headset, nowadays called a head mounted display (HMD). I’ve been reading up on the EMagin Z800 (there’s a nice review here), one particularly new and high-tech HMD that looks like it would be a blast to play Half-Life 2 with. There things have come a long way since the Virtual Boy (which I still regret not buying), and are now compatible with many PC games currently out. The technology is still far from perfect (not all graphics cards and features are supported), and they still cost an arm and a leg (the Z800 is about $800), but there’s really nothing else like experiencing a true virtual environment. The feeling of being able to reach out into a game is just so much cooler than just staring at a flat 2D screen. It’s pretty impressive that the technology is even possible given that these games are not really designed for HMDs. The new HMDs are also a lot more lightweight and comfortable that those huge headsets and goggles that we used to see at the mall, they sit on your forehead and flip down like a pair of sunglasses. I’m not exactly running out to drop $800 in the mail, but it’s exciting to imagine that this could become a lot more mainstream in the near future (Japan is actually pushing for VR television by 2020).

I also discovered a great website for gadgets called ThinkGeek.com. Honestly, I don’t think I’m that much of a nerd, but I can’t help salivating at the idea of the Flash Memory Swiss Army Knife!

Now that’s just cool. And you know I love Nintendo’s new GBA Micro, even though it doesn’t really add any functionality to the GBA I already own. Who cares! It’s small, what more reason do you need! Of course, for all the time I spend thinking about useless things to buy, I don’t really buy much of anything. Must be because of all the money I spend on those vitamins…

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At the beginning of September we moved the shopping cart over to a dedicated domain, and I just wanted to apologize for not having a notice up about this for all our returning customers who had created older accounts. There was a bit of confusion caused due to the fact that we had to rebuild the shopping cart from scratch and previously stored user data could not be saved, meaning that returning customers had to create new accounts all over again. I should have posted a notice about this on the shopping cart page, but I’ve just been so busy that it skipped my mind. Of course, many repeat customers didn’t notice due to the fact that many users simply choose to purchase without creating an account. In any case, there will be an update to the shopping cart page tomorrow with a notice for returning Acne-Vitamins customers.

The new shopping cart is bit more customized than the old version, and is now located at Acne-Vitamins-Shop.com. We had a temporary cart up for a while at the same host that Acne-Vitamins.com is located on, but the controls at this host were not ideal for configuring osCommerce (our shopping cart software), so I decided to host the cart elsewhere. The current host is also a bit more stable, as the previous cart was starting to get a number of time-out errors resulting in voided transactions (this was due to inconsistent transfer rates from the host’s servers). I haven’t experienced any such problems with the current arrangement, and it also gives me a bit more flexibility having the site and shopping cart at separate domains. While the cart host is better for osCommerce, the server that our site uses provides the added benefits of mod_rewrite support - so that I can use 301 forwarding (such as when you type in “acne-vitamins.com” and it forwards to “www.acne-vitamins.com” [keeps me out of trouble with Google]) and a better range of options for WordPress (which is the blogging software I’m using now). So yeah, it’s the best of both worlds.

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So far I’m glad to say that the updated free offer at Acne-Vitamins has been working out really well. I’m taking a short break from last week’s constant tweaking of the website at the moment, but later in the week I may update the testimony page with some new user feedback and maybe a few before-and-after pics. Of course, it costs me to give away all these free bottles, but I honestly prefer this to sending out spammy survey emails that, most of the time, customers don’t care to respond to. Timing feedback with reorders also helps make the process of sending out extra stuff much easier, with less chance that any extra bottles will be forgotten (I’ve got enough paperwork already!). Oh, and reading positive comments gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside ^_^. Thanks a lot to everyone who has sent feedback!

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Just when I thought Yahoo had started to like me, yesterday Acne-Vitamins basically dropped off into oblivion in the Yahoo serps. I had slowly been moving up through the ranks and was finally number one for my domain name and other closely related keywords. Now the site is totally gone from the results. My backlinks dropped from about 700 to less than 90, and indexed pages dropped from about 80 to 3 (ha!). Not sure what’s going on with this update, but on the bright side it seems all my competitors (and basically all relevant sites) have taken a hit as well. I can’t imagine it staying like this as the serps have basically been replaced with eBay items and Blogs (not this one, of course). Hopefully the major changes I made to the navigation-link structure havent set off any alarms (don’t know why they would).

Update: Yahoo seems to be shifting back to normal (I hope!). My site is still a far cry from where it was, but the indexed pages at Acne-Vitamins have jumped up from 3 to about 25, and I’m back in the search results for at least my less-competitive serch terms. It seems every other webmaster on the net was also freaking out, so it’s unlikely to have anything to do with the site changes. Just a very jumbled search engine update…

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Whew! I finally finished the (very) tedious work of updating the entire website to load faster for those poor souls still using 56k modems. Honestly, it should help out with page load speed for everybody, but what I really want to cut down on is the percent of people I’ve been seeing getting a partial-page-load error (when this happens, most the page loads, but you will often get those crossed out missing-graphic boxes, and this can especially be a pain if the graphic missing is a navigation link). My records show that over the last month almost 15% of my visitors have experienced an error like this, and I really want to get that number way down. I like the overall layout of the site and don’t plan to get rid of the major images, but the sheer number of images on the pages was bogging the site down, due in part to the image-swap navigation I was previously using, which added about 14 gif images to every page load. The new navigation uses plain text with a style rollover effect, which should significantly improve load times. I still don’t know squat about CSS programming, but FrontPage handled the rollover effects for me so I didn’t need to learn much. Most users probably won’t even notice, but I think it looks nice and clean, if a little less unique.

Even my small graphics are larger than those found on most sites, but that’s because Acne-Vitamins is really optimized for a higher resolution than most surfers currently use (c’mon, I’m leading a technological revolution here). The site is best viewed at resolutions of 1280 X 1024 or higher (I myself use 1400 X 1050). It fits pretty much exactly in the window at 1024 X 768, but stretches past the borders on the old 800 X 600 standard. Most of my visitors are viewing in 1024 X 768, but with so many people buying flat screens, it’s only a matter of time until typical resolutions improve. More users are also making the jump to broadband, so I’ve basically just positioned the site to be attractive over the long haul, rather than looking outdated in the near future. Just don’t expect me to start using Flash effects or anything! Search engines like text, and so do I. Plus, I don’t know how…

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Browsing through one particular health board today, I found an unusual amount of paranoia regarding B5 acne treatment. While there were some positive contributors talking about the benefits of B5, many users were concerned about the negative effects of taking B5 in high doses. This is understandable coming from people that have not studied vitamins or nutrition, but it’s still unfortunate in that it scares people away from trying a treatment that would probably really work for them, and one in which the potential side effects that could occur are actually much more mild (and rare) than with typical acne treatments.

Some of these supposed side effects include headaches, nausea, arthritis, and hair loss. One user even complained of unsightly hair gain. I should note that all these claims come from mega-dose users (I’ve so far had no reports of any ill side effects with All-in-1’s time-release formula, except the temporary stomach irritation that effects a small percentage of starters).

While there is some evidence for B5 causing headaches among an extremely small percent of users, it is unknown whether these are actually caused by the B5 or the combination of high levels of B5 and other conditions (such as a deficiency of another vitamin). In fact, because these claims come from users who are usually doing all sorts of other things to their bodies, it’s hard to place any cause-and-effect relationship between the problem and B5. Hair loss stands out as one claim that is often a false alarm, due to the fact that the very people who claim it often include details that make it impossible for B5 to be the cause. For instance, many (I’d actually say most) persons who have claimed hair loss resulting from B5 have also stated that their hair loss has continued for months or even years! B5 is a water-soluble vitamin and it cannot be stored by your body. It cannot continue to affect you more than a few weeks after you stop using it. Unfortunately, those who start experiencing hair loss for completely natural and genetic reasons are often so stricken with stress that they search frantically for a reason that they can fix. The fact is that hair loss is genetic and is not so easily fixed. If B5 was the cause, simply quitting B5 would return your hair to its natural growth cycle. So obviously, such cases are false alarms. If you think this is at all a concern, simply lower your dosage.

Nausea can occur when you’re first starting on B5 as your stomach adjusts, but if someone is really experiencing serious nausea (such as to induce vomiting), they are most definitely starting with a dosage much higher than necessary. Simply reducing your dosage will eliminate the problem unless your body has some unique aversion to B5 (personally, I would recommend switching to time-release ^_^).

I know of no medical reason how B5 could cause arthritis. Quite to the contrary, B5 is actually prescribed to help alleviate rheumatoid arthritis, as it naturally enhances your blood circulation, decreases inflammation, and also aids the absorption and processing of other vitamins that work to stop the painful swelling of arthritis. If someone has truthfully experienced arthritis as a result of B5, I would have to question what else they are doing (or not doing) that could be bringing about this strange reaction.

Enhanced hair growth is a possibility, particularly if you’re taking a lot of other vitamins that also contribute to strengthening your hair (such as Biotin). However, in this case it is likely that, should you wish to diminish this effect, you could simply lower your intake. B5 does not have a very noticeable effect on your hair for the vast majority of users, so I wouldn’t consider it a miracle cure to baldness or anything.

While I’m writing a lot here concerning mega-dose B5 - something that I don’t even promote - the fact is that B5 is extremely safe even AT mega-dose levels of 10 grams or more. Your body only absorbs as much as it can use, and being water-soluble, the rest is eliminated the same way as all liquid waste.

The question one needs to consider when looking at side-effect horror stories for this or ANY treatment is this: What else was this person doing that could have contributed to or caused this problem? Figuring out the answer to that is a lot better than illogically spreading fear about a medically safe treatment that could really help a lot of people, especially one that already has such a large number of satisfied users who haven’t experienced any side-effects whatsoever (myself included).

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Hehe, I’ve been reading up about acne light therapy and some other hi-tech acne treatments lately. I’m not really talking about the laser treatment that Dermatologists perform with million-dollar equipment, but rather the do-it-yourself kits that involve radiating your own skin in the comfort (or non-comfort) of your own home. I’m always skeptical of new products, especially those found only on the internet (like mine ^_^), but one’s skepticism naturally rises when the product in question combines big promises with a big price tag.

The latest hi-tech acne treatment devices include ongoing versions of the acne lights that we’ve been seeing for a while, as well as the heat therapy units that have more recently cropped up. It’s hard to find much info about heat therapy products such as Zeno, but what I’ve been able to glean from forums doesn’t paint a pretty picture. To be fair, many people that post in acne forums do so simply to vent, and there may be other people out there who are very happy with a product and simply never speak up. However, it’s obvious that heat therapy simply doesn’t work for a number of users, and the price seems rather steep for something that might be at best a temporary acne fix. It’s this last element that makes me wonder why anyone would spend hundreds of dollars on such a device. Anything that simply nukes the surface of your skin is going to be useless when it comes to preventing acne. Only an internal treatment that has the ability to regulate your skin oil levels can prevent acne before it forms, and isn’t this the real goal? Who wants to keep having to blast a new zit every day when you can prevent acne from happening in the first place?

Light therapy has more information available, but seems less appealing to the casual acne sufferer. There are some who will attest that this treatment works over time, but for many users the wait can be up to 3 months, if they see results at all. B5 can also take this long to kick in for a small percent of users, but at least it works below the surface and results in real prevention. Light therapy is again a skin-deep solution, and an expensive one. Moreover, with so many people worried about over-dosing on a non-toxic, water-soluble vitamin; the idea of exposing one’s self to constant ongoing radiation sounds crazy. Add to that the inconvenience of having to sit everyday in front of your acne light, and you have a business I’m glad I’m not in.

It’s either B5 or Accutane if you want to really prevent acne and maintain clear skin. However, I realize that there is also a need for faster solutions that can get rid of unsightly acne here and now, prevention or not. For these situations, you don’t need to spend a fortune on acne gadgets. What works even better for most people is simply benzoyl peroxide. I don’t recommend this as a permanent acne fix, because it’s not. Constant use can result in skin damage and BP losing its effectiveness as your skin adapts. However, BP is a great spot-treatment for temporary acne relief. I may even offer it in the future to help starters, but for right now the BP gel at acne.org is probably the best product you’ll find for the money. I can certainly recommend it over the latest cutting-edge acne technology…

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It’s time to say goodbye. OK, so I’m not going anywhere, but a friend of mine is leaving Florida tomorrow and I just finished helping him move most of his stuff from his 2nd floor apartment to the moving van. I should probably be taking a shower right now. The only problem is it’s 9:45 and I haven’t had dinner yet. Need…food. Heck, I don’t even know why I’m writing this (you can tell you’re addicted when the first thing you do upon getting home is fire up the PC). Wait, I just bought groceries that need to be refrigerated! What am I doing!? I’ll just publish this post and come back later to edit it into something deep and meaningful….

*OK, I’m back. However, now that my stomach is full, I find myself thinking more about sleep than deep and meaningful commentary. My friend Steve managed to land a good job up in Boston, so that’s why he and his wide Vicki will soon be leaving. I wish them the best in their new locale, although I will miss having someone around to talk old times with (I’ve known Steve since college). Helping out hauling all those boxes made me remember what a pain it is to move (of course I did most the work ^_^), and I really hope I will not be doing so again anytime soon - unless it’s into a multimillion dollar estate, of course. Yeah, Acne-Vitamins isn’t exactly that profitable just yet. Basically everything I make goes right back into the business, but that’s how you turn small businesses into big ones.

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