Your first line of defense against acne is over-the-counter medications. If they don’t seem to be helping, and after six to eight weeks you acne is getting worse… it’s time to see a doctor. You will know it’s time for medical help when

- Your acne causes you psychological distress.

- There are big, tender pimples on your face.

- You begin to see some scarring

- If you have dark skin and dark patches form where the pimples used to be.

What treatment can you expect the doctor to recommend?

First of all your family doctor may send you to a dermatologist if you have severe acne.

Acne can be treated with medications that are either applied to the skin or taken by mouth. Any treatment will be designed to attack the things that trigger acne, like….

- An increase in sebum that leads to a narrowing of the sebaceous glands and produces the bacteria that causes acne

In most cases you can continue with any home remedies that you have been using. The treatment of teenage acne usually will continue until the suffer moves into their 20s.

The first attempt at treatment often begins with lotions or creams that are applied directly to the skin’s surface.

Your doctor may initiate a treatment with azelaic acid (eg Skinoren cream) or benzoyl peroxide (eg Panoxyl, Acnecide) for mild to moderate acne. These medications help prevent the narrowing of the openings of the sebaceous glands and slow the growth of the acne bacterium.

A common treatment is a product that combines benzoyl peroxide with a topical antibiotic such as erythromycin (Benzamycin gel), or clindamycin (Duac once daily gel), or treat the outbreak with a topical antibiotic alone, eg clindamycin (Dalacin T), erythromycin (Eryacne gel), tetracycline (Topicycline).

Doctors often prescribe adapalene (Differin) for people with blackheads, whiteheads and mild inflammatory acne. Women should only use adapalene if they are using effective contraception, such as contraceptive pills. Pregnant women must not use adapalene. Topical tretinoin (Retin-A) and isotretinoin (Isotrex gel) have similar uses and exclusions.

“Systemic treatment” means medicines that are taken orally.

Strange as it may seem adult women with severe acne may benefit from treatment with contraceptive pills containing anti-androgens (Dianette).

For people with severe inflammatory acne, long-term treatment with oral antibiotics such as tetracycline or minocycline (eg Minocin), combined with one of the medications mentioned above are often effective. Tetracycline antibiotics are never given to pregnant women; women who are breastfeeding; or children under 12 years of age.

For patients with severe cystic acne that does not improve with other medications, oral isotretinoin (Roaccutane) is used as a last resort. It is very important that women should neither be pregnant, nor get pregnant, while taking isotretinoin.

Isotretinoin is not suitable for people with liver or kidney disease. The medicine has several severe side effects which is why it can only be prescribed by a dermatologist, but it also often effect an almost miracle like cure of acne.

That brings us to rule number one… don’t stress over your acne. You aren’t the only one who has ever had the problem. Just relax and get to work doing everything you can to keep it under control.

Mark Walters shares startling acne remedies and treatments from his web site http://www.acnerescue.com

The typical modern medicine answer to outbreaks of acne include antibiotics, drying agents, skin peelers and in some cases a very toxic and strong drug Accutane TM. All of these will normally work for a short period of time, but eventually, if the original cause of the acne is not addressed and treated, the acne returns, usually stronger and more widespread than before.

Many of the common theories regarding the possible cause of acne point to the improper release of toxins. As the skin is the largest organ of the body, it helps to eliminate toxins and waste through sweating if the kidneys and liver are overburdened. When a person’s diet is unhealthy, their hormones out of balance or their skin clogged, acne is usually one of the red flag symptoms.

In using natural therapies to treat acne, the focal points of treatment are to decrease the amount of toxins that need to be excreted, balance the hormones, and in general, bring the body back into balance. All of the above can be regulated through diet, herbs and other nutritional supplements.

Vitamin and mineral therapy is a good place to start in the quest to clear up a case of acne. Crucial additions to the diet include essential fatty acids, chromium picolinate, and zinc. A variety of vitamins such as Vitamin A, B complex with extra B3, Vitamin C with bioflavonoids, Vitamin D3, and Vitamin E are also helpful in supporting the body while it works to come back into balance.

Herbal therapy includes any herb that works to detoxify the liver and kidneys. Examples include burdock root, dandelion leaves, milk thistle and red clover. Burdock root and red clover also help in cleansing the blood which is another important part of the overall therapy to decrease acne outbreaks. For hormonal balancing many claim that chaste tree berry works very effectively.

Regardless of the type of treatment you decide to use, always check with your doctor first about the natural therapies you would like to try.

Rachel Dayer runs and operates http://www.mustask.com, a health related portal.

There are Many conflicting theories about an anti-acne diet. Many doctors ignore this matter completely, while a lot of magazines offer “perfect” and “100% sure” acne diets. Where’s the truth? Is there any diet that can really cure acne?

Theoretically, it is possible that a diet can affect this disease. Since the underlying cause of acne is hormonal instability, we can try to repair it by constructing a diet that will stimulate the production of certain hormones and reducing the quantity of others. However for practical reasons it is very difficult to create a working anti-acne diet. Some food has to be eaten in such quantity to have an effect that it is simply impossible to do that. Some kinds of food should be avoided because of acne, but have to be eaten because of the nutritional value. And, let’s face it, sometimes acne is so severe that no diet could help.

Tips and guidelines

While it’s not practical to create a complete anti-acne diet, there are a few tips and guidelines you can follow.

1. Avoid any androgenic hormones in your food. Androgenic hormones tell your skin’s oil glands just how much sebum or skin oil to excrete. DHEA, testosterone, androstenedione should be avoided at all cost - all of them are known to increase the symptoms of acne. Your diet should be completely hormone-free, or as close to it as possible.

2. Don’t drink an excessive amount of milk when you have acne. There are lots of hormones in milk of pregnant cows, and that is the majority of marketed milk and dairy products. If you reduce the quantity of milk in your diet, you will probably minimize the amount of hormones you intake. Progesterone, 5-alpha reduced steroids, and other steroid hormones when digested can break down into DHT, the final molecule that turns on the oil cells in the skin.

3. If you suffer from acne, think about increasing the quantity of fish in your diet. Most fish has very important omega-3 oils that improve health of your skin.

4. It is said that Vitamin E may sometimes worsen acne symptoms, so avoiding it in your diet may help you get rid of the disease. However, there are no hard facts to support for that idea.

5. Avoid sugar. It is known to increase the symptoms of acne.

6. Don’t expect miracles. No anti-acne diet can cure the disease by itself.
You are unlikely to eat yourself free of acne, but good eating habits and a healthy lifestyle will certainly help

Mark Walters presents advice on acne treatments and remedies from Web site http://www.AcneRescue.com