If you have been to see your dermatologist for acne treatment, there are two important reasons you may want to take a second look at natural acne medicine.
One is the nasty side effects of some mainstream medical treatments of acne.
Accutane and Retin-A not only require regular testing for liver damage, women of reproductive age who use them are required to use not just one but two forms of birth control because their potential to damage DNA.
And while these treatments are great if you have deep-seated cystic acne, they can actually make common acne worse! And another reason to take a second look at natural acne medicine is sticker shock.
Health insurance usually does not cover "cosmetic procedures," or, worse, it will cover the first visit and then you find out two, three, or four months later you owe thousands of dollars for the treatments your doctor recommended.
You may have to bust your budget, take out of a loan, or stop in the middle of treatment.
If you are getting acne care for your kids, stopping in the middle of treatment is something you absolutely do not want to do.
So let's take a look at natural acne medicine.
Here are five things you need to know.
1.
The basics of natural acne care are daily cleansing, moisturizing if needed, and exfoliation.
Plain soap and water will do the trick for washing but don't rub your face hard, and don't reinfect your face by drying it with a dirty towel.
Moisturize whenever your skin feels dry or the air is dry, even if you have oily skin.
Moisture isn't the same thing as oil, and moisture in your skin helps keep pores open.
Exfoliation is the process of removing tiny, invisible flakes of dry skin that may block pores.
Something as easy and inexpensive as soaking a clean cloth in whole milk and applying to your face for 15 minutes (and then rinsing off with warm water) can provide a gentle lactic acid peel that lifts and separates dead skin from pores.
This keeps healthy pores open and keeps healing pores from becoming enlarged.
2.
Diet is important, but the bugaboo isn't fried foods or chocolate.
It's sugar.
You should not overindulge in fried foods.
In fact, you are probably better off to avoid them altogether.
Sugar, however, changes some biological reactions in your skin so that it makes more inflammatory chemicals.
Inflammation causes itching, irritation, and blocked up pores.
Getting sugar out of your diet goes a long way toward clearing up your skin.
That old advice of cutting out chocolate and nuts, by the way, really applies to herpes, not to acne.
3.
Keep your skin hydrated inside and out.
This means you do need to drink water throughout the day.
You don't need to walk around with your stomach sloshing, but the science says that five (not eight) glasses of water a day is the minimum you need to keep your body and your skin hydrated.
Moisture is essential to keeping your skin smooth and flexible so it does not tighten around pores and trap oils and bacteria inside.
Hydration is the cheapest and easiest of all the natural acne remedies.
4.
Most acne sufferers don't need antibiotics.
The two alternatives to antibiotics are benzoyl peroxide and tea tree oil, the first chemical, the second a natural acne medicine.
Benzoyl peroxide will kill acne bacteria in about two days, and tea tree oil will kill acne bacteria in about three days.
Tea tree oil, however, relieves redness and irritation, and it doesn't have a side effect that is a real problem with benzoyl peroxide.
Tea tree oil does not dry out your skin, ironically, causing new pimples! 5.
The advice acne sufferers never hear is to be sure to use sunscreen.
Overexposure to the sun can cause the formation of "goose bumps" even in hot weather.
These tiny bumps turn into blackheads, and infected blackheads become pimples.
Using sunscreen or foundation with sunscreen is essential to healthy skin.
Benefits of Natural Acne Medicine One of the best benefits of natural acne medicine is that it's inexpensive.
A dermatologist visit is not necessary in order to get a prescription.
It's also beneficial that it works! In some cases just as good, if not better, than a prescription medication from a dermatologist.
What about side effects? Some of those prescriptions from the dermatologist can cause severe side effects.
Side effects are non-existent or very slight when you go all natural.
What's unfortunate is that acne is unique to every individual.
In your circle of friends you probably have somebody that swears by his acne medication and the fact is it might not work for you at all.
Experimentation is necessary to find what medicine works best on your acne.
But that's true of all acne medicine whether it's a natural acne medicine or not.