How to Get Rid of Acne Pimples
How to Get Rid of Acne Pimples
This How to Get Rid of Acne guide offers you the best solutions and strategies to treating and eliminating acne.
Acne (Pimples) is a common problem that afflicts most teenagers. It follows that getting rid of acne is very high on the agenda for both teenagers and adults alike. For chronic sufferers of acne, there is absolutely nothing more debilitating towards your confidence than having a breakout. In many cases, acne has the unfortunate habit of cropping up before some important event – a bit date, an important job interview, a public event, that upcoming public speech, etc. Fortunately, there are excellent acne treatments that if followed WILL help you improve your skin complexion. I so want to state right now and get it out: there is no magic bullet for acne, no special “cure”. Many websites will promise you some sort of instant way to eliminate your acne. Nope, sorry to bust your bubble but no such thing exists. But yes you can, with work, get rid of acne and radically improve your completion.
So What is Acne and How to Treat those Pimples?
So first up, before you challenge your nemesis, acne, you need to know what your enemy does. Yep, acne is indeed your enemy. If you want to defeat it, you’re going to have to wage a war of attrition against it. So what exactly is acne? Where does it come from? Well, from you – or more specifically – from your homes. Acne is caused by a testosterone hormonal imbalance. Ah testosterone – you know, that stuff that bodybuilders use to become giant. Yes, that testosterone! But while testosterone is commonly associated with men, women do have it in lower quantities.
So what’s the deal with testosterone? Well, people suffering from acne have abnormal levels of testosterone. Testosterone tells your skin glands, which are called sebaceous glands, to produce oil called sebum. Inside the tubes that hold hairs (pores), an oily, gummy blockage occurs and you get blackheads. You also get bacteria living inside the pores, thriving off of the sebum oil. Your body goes to war with this bacteria and you get an infection – hence the red spots that we call acne. So in short: an imbalance in testosterone leads to the production of more sebum which in turn blocks facial pores causing blackheads and bacterial infection inside of those pores. It’s a vicious cycle that causes untold grief in millions of teenagers and adults around the world. Most cases of acne clear up after the teenage years, but sometimes not. Fortunately there are some effective methods of getting rid of acne, or at the very least, some treatments to reduce the amount of acne you have.
Some easy tips to eliminate acne/pimples:
Don’t Touch Red Pimples
If you have some angry red looking acne, whatever you do, do not touch it. Squeezing the pimples will only force the contents deeper into the skin aggravating the problems! The last thing you want is redder and more inflamed acne!
Wash your face several times a day
Yep, probably one of the most effective ways to get rid of acne is to actually wash your face. But before heading to your sink, hold on. You should get some non-comedogenic soap first (a special soap that does not clog up your pores and add to your acne problem) from the acne-fighting section of your local drugstore. Wash your face once a day using this soap. You should also get some exfoliating facewash and use it once or twice a day. These special facewashes contain small beads that help clean your pores out. Note, don’t try and “scrub” away your acne. Be very gentle when you wash your face.
Squeeze Infected Pimples
Pimples that have come to a head (i.e. are have a white/yellow crust on them) can be squeezed. Wash your hands thoroughly and do not damage the skin with your nails when you squeeze out the pus. Draining an infected pimple allows the pimple to heal much faster than if you leave the pus in.
If you suffer from an explosion of blackheads, you can squeeze them out, but any white lumps should be left alone – the white lumps go deep into your skin and irritating them can scar your face! If you want to squeeze out blackheads, wash your hands before doing so and don’t use your nails! Beauticians and dermatologists will perform this service professionally, but you’ll have to pay!
Try over-the-counter acne remedies
There are a ton of over-the-counter acne remedies that may or may not help your problem. Take a good look at what you see in drugstores. It’s up to you to find out what medicines may or may not work. In general, most acne medicines purchasable from the isles contain Benzyl-Peroxide – a proven method of treating and preventing small acne. If you have a series acne problem, you may need to try the more serious medicines. One useful product are face exfoliating products – using these a couple times a day may reduce the number of breakouts.
Proactive
Proactive is another popular medicine that you might want to consider. Many people claim it works and I know several people personally who have tried it and seen results. In my own experience, Proactive just dried out my face and was not effective, but if you are feeling particularly desperate, it’s worth giving proactive a shot. However, note that Proactive is a “treatment” and you must keep on buying the proactive kit every few months at about 60 bucks a pop – certainly not a cheap solution!
Try Acne Home Remedies to Eliminate Acne
There a profusion of acne home remedies out there reputed to reduce or eliminate acne. Some of the more notable ones I’ve heard (and tried) are washing your face with lemon juice and applying toothpaste to your pimples. I will be dealing with using home remedies to treat acne in a separate post.
Acne Prescription Drugs
There are a variety of medicines that can help eliminate acne. Some of the more powerful medicines can even “cure” acne –though this cure usually takes months of treatments. Probably the most well-known medicine is Accutane. This powerful drug basically seals the oil glands on the face, reducing the oil present on the face. The principal the drug operates on is simple: reduce the facial oils and you reduce the number of pimples resulting from that oil! However, Accutane is a powerful drug and should only be taken as an absolute last resort. There are some possible serious side effects from the drug.
Follow these simple steps and you will go a long way to getting rid of your acne. Eliminating pimples is not an easy process. You will have to create a regimen (washing your face, applying facial creams, etc) to see results, but if you are persistent, you will in the end have a good chance of drastically reducing your acne. Remember, there is no single, one solution. You will have to try a variety to different acne-treating methods to find a solution. This may something as simple as using exfoliating face wash a couple times a day to a combination of acne home remedies to using demonologist-prescribed drugs. Each person is different and it’s up to you to find what works best for you. But keep at it, with enough persistence, you can treat acne and get that clean complexion!
Make sure you check out my other Acne Treatment Posts for useful information about how to treat and get rid of acne!
Dr. Acne
