Birth Control Pills to Treat Your Acne

Birth control pills for acne? It's won't come as a surprise if we fully understand how acne begin in the first place. Caused by a blockage of pores in the hair follicles by excessive shedding of dead skin and secretion of sebum, acne pimple begin to take shape.

What causes an abnormally high amount of sebum secretion by the glands in our skin? It is mainly due to the excessive amount of male hormone, androgen and testosterone presence. When one is in teenage years, the female and male hormones are normally out of balance. And yes, the male hormones also made themselves present in a female body.

Birth control pill is used to bring back some stability of these hormones in the woman's body. Women normally experience great hormone fluctuation before their menstrual period. When these hormones are regulated and become more balance, acne outbreaks would not only become less severe but also less frequent.

A visit to a dermatologist for those with severe case of acne would normally lead to the prescription of isotretinoin. This medication, usuall come in the brand Accutane, is a risky drug to treat acne.       


To say that Accutane is risky to a pregnant woman is an understatement. It is a well known fact that Accutane causes great harm to one's fetus. Therefore, federal regulation are in placed to confirm one is not pregnant before taking Accutane. Also, screening of pregnancy is required for each refill of Accutane medication.

That's why your doctor normally prescribed birth control pill be taken together with Accutane to minimize the chance of getting pregnant during one's acne treatment using Accutane. However, as with all other acne medications, once you stop taking them, acne will come back to haunt you and might even be more severe than before.

One final note I must stress that when birth control pills are used to control one's acne, its effectiveness on its main function, ie. to avoid pregnancy, is greatly reduced due to the presence of Accutane. It still have its effect but it pays to get another birth control method in place to further reduce the probability of getting a baby.      

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How to prevent acne: is it possible?

I guess everyone who have acne would look for ways to prevent it. But is that possible?

To answer that question, you got to know why acne occur in the first place. It is not due to dirt or, the stuff you eat (though there're lots of debates going around about this point). It is mainly due to the hormonal change in our bodies. For teenagers, this hormone change is unavoidable. So is acne that come together with it.

Next, you may ask, "Since everyone experiences hormonal changes in their bodies, why not everyone get acne?" Interesting question. I guess by now, you already known that everyone of us is different. That includes our bodies. For most of us, our sebaceous glands will secrete more oil as a reaction to our hormonal changes while a small number of us do not show such symptom.

And when too much oil (sebum) is produced and coupled with the abnormal amount of dead skin shedding , our hair follicles will be blocked. When this takes place, it only a matter of days that acne lesions will pop up on our skin.

Though acne can't be prevented, it can be minimized. Taking steps to minimize the acne occurrence in our skin will save us tons of problem in dealing with our skin appearance later on in our life. So let take a look at ways to do so.

Remember I said earlier on, acne is not caused by dirt. So there is no need to wash your face repetitively daily. It won't make your pimples go away. Instead, it would only worsen your skin condition and makes it more acne-prone as over washing makes it drier. When your skin become too dry, the sebaceous glands will secrete more sebum and as a result, more acne breakouts will occur. Usually washing your face two times a day is sufficient in keeping your skin hygiene.

And do pat dry your skin after washing instead of rubbing with rough towel. Why? Surely you don't want to give your existing acne a chance to infect the skin area which is free of acne.

Some skincare companies give the misconception that hard scrub is good for our skin. Hope that you didn't tag along the same line. Remember our skin (especially the part that is on the face) is very delicate. To keep it clean, you don't have to scrub it vigorously. Such action would only "puncture" and injure it which would pose more problem to your acne condition.

Remember the age old saying that it is not wise to squeeze your pimples? Guess it is true that such an action would result in more breakouts. Squeezing or picking your pimples pushes the acne bacteria deeper into your skin and bacteria can also be transferred from your fingers to the respective skin area. Squeeze too hard and you increase the risk of having an acne scar. So it is best to leave your acne lesions alone unless you know what and how to do it properly.


As most of us have a mild case of acne, over the counter acne treatment would do fine. Get something mild (usually those medications contain benzoyl peroxide and go for the lowest concentration available) and give it a few weeks to work. Use it sparingly in the beginning to give your skin a chance to adapt it. More application of the treatment will only aggravate your acne breakouts and pose the treatment unsuitable for your skin. The moral of the story, more is not always better!
     

   

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