Erica Jennings
“How to Get Rid of Acne Fast – The Newest Developments in the Fight Against Acne”
Contributer: Erica Jennings
March 2 2011
There is still no “overnight” acne remedy but new government research verifies that treatments like the popular Acne No More (which I explain below in detail) can be effective in controlling and eliminating acne. I’ve done a lot of research on this topic because I suffered from acne too and when I say “suffered,” I’m not being cute. Acne is a serious disease. It can scar your skin for life and severely damage your self-esteem. Unfortunately, unscrupulous marketers take advantage of the pain we’ve suffered and try to sell us beautifully packaged (and very expensive) “acne treatment systems” that really don’t work at all. It’s not just that these people and companies are dishonest – their products are based on outdated theories of what causes acne in the first place.
Acne is not caused by bacteria.
Acne is not caused by poor skin care or bad hygiene.
Acne IS caused by hormones and the way your body reacts to, and processes these hormones when they are in your bloodstream. Also, it’s genetic: you probably inherited your acne condition from your parents.
Therefore:
Products that use regimens based on benzoyl peroxide, special skin toners, exfoliation creams etc., etc., are just marketing hype. They are a great way to spend your money, but not how to get rid of acne.
Thankfully, our understanding of acne has come a long way in just the past few years and so has our approach to treating acne. We are more successful at getting rid of acne now than ever before because we know we have to target the real hormonal cause of acne. So let me show you how to get rid of acne fast – well, as fast as possible, anyway.
Proper Skin Care Helps But is Not a Cure
First, no amount of face washing is going to help you get rid of acne. Washing your face too much, or with anything but the mildest cleansers is a sure way to make your acne worse! Why? Because you can inflame your skin and hamper its natural healing process. Some people swear that the best thing they ever did for their acne was to stop washing their face at all. This may seem drastic, but it is better than washing incorrectly.
How to Wash your skin? Keep it simple!
Cetaphil is much better than soap because it will not dry out and irritate your skin
First, wet your face with lukewarm water and apply a gentle cleanser like Cetaphil instead of soap, or a very gentle soap like Dove (although Cetaphil is much more gentle than Dove). There is a good deal I found on a two-pack of Cetaphil on Amazon: click here to see at Amazon
Of course, taking proper care of your skin is just the beginning, because, as I said, your acne is caused by the hormones that are circulating in your blood. You can make your acne worse by doing things that aggravate and inflame your skin (picking, rubbing, squeezing or washing incorrectly) but the only way to get rid of acne is to control and alter the hormones that cause your problem in the first place. Without tackling the hormone problem, your acne is not going to go away. That’s why most of the old ways of fighting acne don’t work over the long term.
What Doesn’t Work and Why
Before we discuss the effective new treatments, you may be considering using some of the more traditional acne treatments. Unfortunately, acne has simply never been treated effectively until recently. Benzoyl peroxide, antibiotics and Accutane are the “old way” of doing things. But let’s take a look at each in turn to see what the deal is, and if you should be putting your faith in these tired treatments:
Benzoyl Peroxide
Benzoyl Peroxide: Too strong and harsh for your skin
Doctors have long considered benzoyl peroxide (BP) to be the “gold standard” acne treatment. In fact, if you have very mild acne, a 2.5% BP gel can help you somewhat. BP works on two fronts: as an antibiotic that kills bacteria, and as a pore un-clogger. Killing bacteria will not prevent acne but it can reduce the occurrence of infected (big red) pimples. By cleaning out your pores, BP can go some distance to reducing mild forms of acne. The problem is that it is not completely effective at unblocking pores and does nothing to prevent pores from being blocked in the first place (that’s caused by those pesky hormones!). Benzoyl peroxide can severely dry and flake your skin. If you choose to use it (because your acne is very mild) you should use a light moisturizer as well to reduce the side effects.
Also, wipe your face with a salicylic acid pad before applying BP– this really increases the pore-clearing effect of BP. Never use anything stronger than 2.5% BP as clinical trials have proven these stronger formulations are not more effective. You can buy 2.5% gels over the counter at a drug store. Cheap.
Prescription-strength BP and mail order products (ProActive etc.) usually contain strengths of 5-10% and these are simply too harsh for your skin. Avoid these products. Again, benzoyl peroxide is only useful if you have very mild acne. I would never recommend it anyway, since it is very hard on your skin and you also develop a kind of “addiction” to it. If you stop, your acne will return (if it ever leaves in the first place). It takes 6 weeks to notice any results from BP. More likely is that you will not notice any improvement but your skin will be dry, flaky and irritated.
Antibiotics
Doctors used to prescribe antibiotics all the time to fight acne, but, it was a misguided attack based on the myth that bacteria causes acne. Bacteria can make acne appear worse (red pimples) but it does not cause acne in the first place. You can have no bacteria on your skin and still have acne. That’s because hormones cause your skin to produce too much sebum (oily, gooey stuff) and also causes the lining of your hair follicles to shed improperly. The mix of these substances forms a plug that blocks your pores and “backs up” as more and more sebum builds up behind, swelling the area. Antibiotics kill bacteria but do nothing to this acne causing mechanism.
I had to suffer through years of antibiotics because my doctor prescribed them. Antibiotics kill off both the “good bacteria” and the bad bacteria in your system. This can lead to digestive problems, strange rashes and all sorts of unexplained side effects.
These days, there is a big concern that antibiotics contribute to the development of “super-bugs.” These are antibiotic-resistant bacteria that are much more difficult to kill. As a result, doctors should not be prescribing antibiotics to treat acne. They don’t work, and it puts other people at risk by breeding bacteria that is resistant to antibiotics. So don’t do it!
Accutane
Accutane can be a very effective acne treatment if you have severe acne, but only if you have severe acne. Accutane is no longer available in the United States because of the terrible side effects associated with its use. Even if you are not planning on getting pregnant and therefore not concerned about birth defects, you should be aware that there are many other serious side effects including potential liver damage, suicidal depression… can I stop after those two? Also consider that Accutane can take up to a year to produce results and in the meantime your skin and acne will be extremely aggravated. You may want to stay indoors and avoid social contact, it’s that bad. Your skin will be painful, your eyes will be dry, and your lips chapped beyond belief.
Accutane is also expensive and you have to be under medical supervision. Bottom line? If all else fails, you might want to investigate Accutane. But only if your acne is severe and other treatments have failed.
So now that I’ve pretty much “dissed” those traditional, and rather useless treatments, it’s time to talk about the new way of treating acne that is far more effective. As I said earlier, we now understand that acne is caused by hormones. More specifically androgen hormones. These hormones spike during puberty and gradually taper off as you get older. In women, they fluctuate with the menstrual cycle which is why you may notice that your acne gets worse at certain times of the month.
Recently there has been a slew of published medical reports within the mainstream medical community that has verified that it is possible to regulate and control acne-causing hormones through diet and lifestyle. In short, the secret to controlling hormones and acne is not to be found in lotions and medications you put on your skin, it’s about what happens inside. You can control and eliminate your acne by doing routines (diet and otherwise) that alter the way your body produces these hormones, and improves your body’s ability to eliminate these hormones from your bloodstream. Click Here to see the US Government website associated with the National Institute of Health which summarizes these findings (opens in new window)
The value of this type of research cannot be overstated. We finally understand the key to eliminating acne once and for all – from the inside. Often these researchers weren’t looking specifically to find a hormonal link as it applies to acne, they were investigating the “low glycemic” diets such as the Atkins Diet and trying to explain why these diets work for losing weight when traditional explanations said they shouldn’t. For many years adherents to these diets were ridiculed by weight-loss “experts” who couldn’t accept that Atkins and others were right. Now we know that not only is the Atkins diet effective, but one of the reasons it is effective is the hormonal changes that occur by restricting the intake of certain foods.
Now we’ll really talk about how to get rid of acne fast. In my experience, you can forget about any treatment that goes on the surface of your skin. You have to target acne from “the inside out.” How do you do that? The secret is, you have to do a special “cleansing fast” that can start to clear acne from your face in just a few days.
You mean if I stop eating, my acne will go away?!?! Actually, yes. Fasting is the key to quick acne reduction. It’s not just not eating, it’s restricting your diet to a few special food items for several days to a week or more. This is the core of Acne Free in 3 Days, a wildly successful anti-acne program that many people swear by. The problem is that there is a lot more involved to getting rid of acne over the long term, and keeping it away permanently, and that is why I find it difficult to recommend that program. I think the best anti-acne system is Acne No More, which shows you how to get rid of acne fast with special fasts and supplements among other things, but also has all the information you need to stay clear of acne for the rest of your life. It has WAY more information than Acne Free in 3 Days and is far and away more effective for the long term and just as effective in the short term. Let’s talk a bit more about Acne No More and why I like it.
As Atkins was to weight-loss, nutritionist and researcher Mike Walden is to the treatment of acne. Walden is a former acne sufferer who created Acne No More, a “holistic” (whole body), natural system that systematically reduces your androgen hormone production and increases the processing and elimination of these hormones from the bloodstream. It took 4 years to create and is clinically proven to reduce acne. In fact, it has cured thousands of acne sufferers who failed at the traditional treatments.
I bought Acne No More with my own money. I read it and I was impressed. We finally have a new and effective way to treat acne from the inside out, eliminating the causes of acne instead of just trying to suppress the symptoms. This system not only fully explains everything you need to know about acne, it also sets out a step-by-step approach to control and eliminate acne permanently. The system is multi-pronged: it serves to reduce hormones, inflammation of the skin, and bacteria that can make acne appear worse.
On first glance, you may find yourself intimidated by the sheer size of this “Acne Bible.” It weighs in at 242 pages (real pages not fluff). While the actual step-by-step program takes up a good portion of it, Walden dedicates a lot of space to explaining in logical, scientifically valid, clear terms why and how His System works. He fully explains acne. He talks about hormones and how they work. He talks about why his system makes your body process and eliminate those hormones more effectively. I have studied many medical papers on acne and I was unable to find anything in Acne No More that isn’t medically valid. In fact, it is a bit shocking to see how far ahead of the curve Acne No More is considering that only the latest medical studies, now being published, cover similar territory. Once you read this book, you will know more about acne than 99.9% of the population and you will know what needs to be done to eliminate it permanently.
If you follow the program you will, in 4-6 weeks, have miraculously clearer skin. You will probably notice changes in your skin in as little as a week when you do the special cleansing fasts I talked about before. As Walden points out “I haven’t yet met the person who followed the Acne No More System without experiencing a remarkable change in his or her acne condition. Moreover, many report a dramatic, positive impact over their mental and emotional well-being.”
Acne No Moreisn’t for everyone, but it is the best way to get rid of acne. You are going to have to make some lifestyle changes including diet changes as part of the program. If you are hooked on Big Macs and other poor quality foods, you will have to ask yourself if they are more important than your acne. If you’re like me the thought of beating your acne will make losing these poor habits absolutely worthwhile. But if you would rather eat that stuff and aren’t willing to do what it takes (it’s not that hard) then this system is not for you. The benefit, besides clear skin, will be a significant boost to your overall health. Who doesn’t love that? Besides, if you are hesitant to commit to the entire Acne No More Program, I think there is great value to be had in implementing it to whatever extent you are comfortable. Mike Walden recently decided to include “The Guideline Program”, a smaller book which cuts out all of the explanations and just gives you a no-excuses basic routine to get your skin clear – which is great if you don’t feel you are prepared to immediately go through the whole program. This bonus is itself better than most of the other acne treatment systems you see on the internet. But do the full system if you want the most benefit.
Acne No More is really the best way to get rid of acne fast (the only successful way that I know of) and for the long term. It is only available online at Mike Walden’s site. For more information on Acne No More Click Here To Visit Mike Walden’s Site. Now that I’ve shown you how to get rid of acne fast, I want to wish you good luck in getting the clear skin you deserve!