Acne Home Remedies - A Dermatologists' Recommendations

Heredity plays a big part in severe acne, but there are other things that can worsen the situation – so here’s some topics to bear in mind when looking for acne home remedies. One is stress, which seems to increase the output of the oil glands. Often students will get worse a week before exams, and afterwards improve again.

Another is cosmetics and even some acne preparations, which worsen matters by clogging the glands with oil or creams.

One test of a wide range of cosmetics showed about half caused pimples. The rule of thumb for skin preparations is that water-based substances are harmless, cream-based are not. A good idea for acne sufferers is that they test a little of a preparation on the back of a hand. If a drop of water on it beads up, the preparation should not be used; if the water is absorbed, the preparation should be safe to use.

One thing that helps little - if at all - is diet. People think when they eat grease it comes out on their skin. That's blooey. The oil gland is a separate little factory itself.

No study has ever shown a tie between diet and acne. Some older doctors still hand out diet sheets to patients. The best advice is to avoid any foods that are obviously causing a problem, but to otherwise stick to a normal healthy diet.

Nor does washing with soap and water do much. It removes surface oil and dries the skin a little bit. But it doesn't kill the bacteria - especially not those near the hair roots.

The bacteria, however, can normally be handled with antibiotics. Severe acne patients are given tetracycline at doses so low, that they're safer than aspirin. That helps 75 per cent of patients.

If that doesn't work, next comes orithromycin, and after that minocyline. The other thing that helps is to dry and peel the skin. Stronger antibacterial soaps - Dial, Zest, Irish Spring and the like -   kill surface bacteria and do a better job of drying.

Some acne soaps - Fostcx is one - have sulfur and resorcinol, drying agents that do a bit more. Other soaps contain polyethylene granules to literally sand the face and make the skin turn over faster. The least expensive is as good as the most expensive. And as good as any of them is a soap that contains pumice, Lava.

There is a psychological problem with Lava. It's usually thought to be a mechanic's soap, so many women refuse to try it. And some patients feel something's wrong with a dermatologist who recommends that cheap a product.

All of the "sanding" soaps can cause irritation. Acne preparations also dry the skin and peel it, usually with the use of sulfur, resorcinol and salicylic acid. One of these is Clearacil.

But far superior, are preparations that contain benzoylperoxide. Most are obtained only by prescription, but two that are "not quite as good" can be obtained without prescription - Benoxyl and Oxy-5.

Another treatment is Vitamin A acid, which is a stronger drying and peeling agent. It creates a reaction much like sunburn, but for most people is too irritating.

Another acne treatment, which some physicians recommend, is carbon dioxide slushes which also cause an artificial sunburn. And there are sunlamps and sunlight itself. They cause tans, and dry and peel the skin. But for light-skinned people especially, they significantly increase the chance of premature wrinkles and skin cancer.

I worry about people with blue eyes and blond hair who use these types of acne home remedies, if that's what we're trading, acne for premature wrinkles and possible skin cancer.