Treating Acne Causes
Understanding your type of acne can help you more effectively treat it, so given the direct acne causes discussed in the last post, what treatments should you be trying in order to achieve clear skin? Excess oil, clogged pores, and bacterial infections each involve different treatment methods, but on the bright side, sometimes effectively targeting one of these problems will also help you eliminate the others.
For most people, treating excess oil production should be the first and most important step to clear skin. This is due to the fact that excess oil can actually cause the other two problems: by leaving your pores swollen with sebum, they are more apt to collect waste particles (such as dead cells) and become clogged; and since the P. Acnes bacteria feeds off sebum, an excess of it encourages bacterial growth.
External treatments will not help you control the production of your oil glands. Cleansing can momentarily eliminate surface oil, but unless you wash every 2 hours (which causes its own set of problems) it’s not going to have any lasting effect. There are two treatments that work: prescription vitamin A derivatives (such as Accutane), and vitamin B5 treatments (such as Clear5). The former are the strongest solutions, but can have serious side effects. These vitamin A derivatives work by inhibiting oil production, causing your glands to shut down so that oil is not produced in the first place. Vitamin B5 treatments on the other hand, achieve a similar end result, but rather than shutting down your glands, they speed up your body’s metabolism of skin oil. So your glands still produce the oil, but your body breaks it down faster, eliminating excess skin oil before it can cause problems such as acne.
For dealing with cases of acne in which clogged pores are the direct problem preventing clear skin (such as in many cases of body acne), external treatments can be more helpful. Keeping control of oil production still aids in preventing these cases by keeping your pores from becoming swollen, but sometimes a strong topical cream or cleanser may be needed to help remove the “plug” of waste clogging your pores. Exfoliating treatments are particularly effective for this. Use either an exfoliating acid solution (salicylic acid is one the most popular and effective active ingredients for this), a scrubbing paste, or a physical exfoliation product (like a textured sponge) to evenly scrape away the top layer of dead skin cells in problem areas. Exfoliate regularly and keep the area generally clean.
Lastly, for bacterial infections there are effective treatments from both the external and internal camps, but the external ones are those which will give you the fastest results. Again, staying on top of oil production can help prevent the problem by eliminating the main food source that allows bacterial populations to grow. To kill acne-causing bacteria within your pores, the most prominent solution at this time is benzoyl peroxide (BP). BP is used as the active ingredient in many big-name topical products such as Proactiv and Neutrogena’s On-The-Spot, but is equally effective when simply applied as a generic cream in a 2.5% concentration. For those who would rather use a natural alternative, Tea Tree Oil has been found to be just about as effective as BP at killing acne bacteria, plus many find it less drying. As far as internal treatments go, there are a huge number of vitamins and minerals that act as natural anti-oxidants, but when it comes to clear skin, some have more evidence backing them then others. Zinc has repeatedly been shown to be especially effective at ridding your skin cells of bacteria and preventing acne. Combining a zinc supplement with an effective topical cream can help you kill existing bacteria and prevent new infections from forming.
