Acne Treatments
"There is no single disease which causes more psychic trauma, more maladjustment between parents and children, more general insecurity and feelings of inferiority and greater sums of psychic suffering than does acne vulgaris." --Sulzberger & Zaldems, 1948
While known for quite some time, the psychosocial effects of acne have not been fully appreciated until recently. The reasons for this are many. After all, everyone gets acne to one degree or another. In most cases, it goes away on its own. While it's running its course, it is not a serious threat to anyone's overall physical health. In addition, until the last couple of decades, there was very little anyone could do to treat it.
Acne, nonetheless, has a significant impact on a person's outlook on life. Recent studies have detected the following as common among people with acne:
- Social withdrawal
- Decreased self-esteem
- Reduced self-confidence
- Poor body image
- Embarrassment
- Feelings of depression
With the right treatment, you can keep acne under control. But what's the best acne treatment for you? Many options are available, including prescription creams and antibiotics, which target the various causes of acne. But even with the wide range of acne treatments, chronic breakouts may still be difficult to treat.
Several new acne treatments — such as blue light therapy or photodynamic therapy— may be effective options if other traditional treatments fail to work.
BLU-U Light Therapy
There is a treatment available that doesn't depend on medications to decrease acne breakouts. BLU-U Blue Light Therapy. The BLU-U is a very special blue light designed to kill the p. acne bacteria on your skin. If you suffer from mild to moderate acne or your current medications are not giving you the proper results, then maybe it's time to consider BLU-U Acne Treatment.
Treatments of BLU-U are very simple, have no down time, and are painless. Treatments usually take around 15 minutes, once or twice a week. The treatments can last up to 5 or 6 weeks, until you get the desired effects. Periodic maintenance treatments may be required. We often combine BLU-U light therapy with Levulan® Photodynamic Therapy or chemical peels.
Photodynamic Therapy
Levulan® Photodynamic Therapy (ALA-PDT) for acne is the most recent advance in acne therapy. Evolve Medical Associates offers this revolutionary acne skin care treatment.
Levulan® Photodynamic acne therapy involves the application of Levulan® (5-aminolevulinic acid or ALA), a photosensitizing agent, which is then activated with IPL (intense pulse light), Vbeam laser, or Blue-U light. This results in improvement in moderate to severe cystic acne, inflammatory acne and comedomal acne.
Levulan® acne treatment involves three mechanisms of action against acne. First, it inactivates the bacteria that trigger acne. Second, it exfoliates the skin to unclog pores. Third, and the most exciting mechanism, is that Levulan® treatment slows down overactive sebaceous glands in the skin. This is exciting because sebaceous glands are the root cause in the formation of acne so it has a long lasting effect even on severe acne.
Levulan® acne therapy can even work in patients who have failed accutane. Accutane also targets the sebaceous glands but accutane has fairly toxic side effects. Levulan® is a very safe alternative to accutane treatment.
Chemical Peels
Chemical peeling continues to be the gold standard in cosmetic enhancement of facial skin. Chemical peeling of the face has been performed for many years. The ancient Egyptians used particles of alabaster mixed with milk and honey to abrade facial skin to create tightening. In Egypt Cleopatra is said to have bathed in sour milk, while French women have applied fermented wine to their faces to improve the quality of the skin.
Salicylic acid is a beta-hydroxy acid and the only member of the beta-hydroxy acid family.
Salicylic acid is beneficial for acne vulgaris, enlarged pores, rough and oily skin, melasma, post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation, and photoaging.