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In the previous posting in this series on acne and the treatment available for it we looked at some of the treatments available to combat your acne.

Next are some preventive measures. If you’re a woman, check your makeup, and try to avoid products containing lanolins, isopropyl myristate, sodium lauryl sulphate, laureth-4 and red dyes. Rinse your makeup off thoroughly every night and wash with mild soap twice a day.

It’s possible your makeup has too much oil and is at least contributing to your acne problem. Check this out by putting a generous portion of your makeup onto a piece of bond paper and leaving for around 24 hours. Then check it to see how big the ring of grease is. A big ring betrays excessive oil in the makeup.

As another little “experiment” it may be worth giving up seafood for a while to see if it affects your acne. The trouble with seafood is that it contains iodine, which excretes through the oil glands, irritating the pores.

Any medication, such as creams or gels, that you are applying should be spread over the whole area affected and not just the spots themselves. Allow an extra half an inch all round to give the best chance of success. And cleanse your skin thoroughly before each application of over-the-counter medications.

Now for a little advice which may sound weird, but it works. Try a little TLC for your skin. Giving your face a little affectionate squeeze or massage may be just the ticket. This will help your skin rid itself of excess oils and keratin. Do this a couple of times a day. Stretch it gently in all directions, but don’t pinch. You and your skin will feel much better for it.

Finally, here is a little nugget of wisdom I want you never to forget. Your acne may be caused or exacerbated by stress and if you think this may apply to you then try the following little exercise. Locate the two hollow points at the base of your skull on either side of the back of your neck and press them gently but firmly for one to two minutes with your thumbs. Breathe deeply and relax. If you do this two or three times a day then after a week or so you’ll probably be pleasantly surprised at how your acne is receding.

The important thing is to never give up. By assessing what is and isn’t good for your skin, examining the likely causes of your acne, and reviewing the best medications you will give yourself the best chance possible of achieving results you never thought possible.

Philip Gegan

For the full range of exercises for getting rid of acne and seventeen other common ailments, read Press Away Pain, available from our home page.

This is the second posting on acne and the treatment available to deal with it. We were talking about excess keratin produced by your skin cells and how to prevent it from blocking the oil ducts within your hair follicles, or even from forming at all.

Most over-the-counter remedies concentrate on unblocking the blockage by making your pimples and spots open up to release their contents, thus resolving the problem. But there is a downside to this.

And that downside is the side effects that usually manifest themselves. The treatments make the spots open up by drying them out. The trouble is that adjoining areas of the skin, which invariably share the same treatment applied to the spots, also dry out, often leading to irritation, chaffing and rashes, and often the return of the acne.

If your treatment involves drugs or antibiotics then there are often further side effects such as nausea, headaches, bone and joint pain and even, in rare cases, tendonitis. This leads us to consider the next possible treatment – herbal remedies.

The dandelion flower is probably the most well known repository of a herbal remedy for acne. You can eat the leaves in a salad or steam them in order to ingest their valuable vitamins and minerals, which are conducive to healthy skin by assisting with digestion and helping the body to rid itself of skin bacteria.

Take the roots and dry them before chopping and roasting them. Then put two teaspoonfuls of them into a quarter of a litre of water and simmer for twenty minutes. Drink three to four cups of this each day.

For a more direct treatment, take some lavender oil, which is antibacterial and anti-inflammatory, and dab it on individual spots with a cotton bud. If you prefer, use pure aloe vera instead.

Alternatively, you can raise your game and treat your whole face to a natural remedy mask. The fruits usually used are grapes and pineapple husks or strawberries. Put them into a blender and make them into a puree. Apply to your face for ten or fifteen minutes and then wash off. This can help remove excess amounts of keratin and dead skin cells that are probably blocking your pores.

We’ve covered some of the treatments available. In the next posting we’ll look at some preventive measures.

Philip Gegan

Check out these simple ways of curing your acne problem – just visit our home page.

This is the first in a series of three short postings on acne and the treatment that is available to deal with it. The intention of these postings is to sort the facts from the fallacies.

Our drugstores and shopping malls are crowded with acne cures of all kinds. The eBay Health and Beauty section is crowded with them. No wonder young people afflicted with acne don’t know which treatment is most likely to suit them.

Because everyone’s skin is different and the causes of acne are many and various there are some treatments that will probably make your condition worse rather than better. The problem is in trying to find out which ones those are, and avoiding them. However, on the positive side, there is almost certainly a combination that will help YOU, and this posting is about giving yourself the best chance of discovering it.

What we are going to cover in this posting and the following two in the series are the causes of acne, the over-the-counter treatments, herbal remedies and a couple of “hands on” techniques that have been shown to work well in many cases. The important things to establish, first of all, are the type of skin you have, and the likely cause of your problem.

It’s a popular fallacy that chocolate and other sugary foods cause acne, but in fact they don’t. The main culprit is an excess of a certain protein called keratin that is produced by the skin cells to prevent your skin drying up. Anything from stress to prolonged exposure to the sun to seasonal changes can set this off.

The resulting gunk then blocks the oil ducts within your hair follicles and stops the oil escaping onto your skin surface (thereby tending to dry out the skin, leading to the anomaly of greasy spots on dry skin). Add the bacteria naturally present in your hair follicles, and the resultant waste material becomes trapped just beneath your skin surface, leading to spots, blackheads, and so on.

If you can find a way of preventing this blockage, or, even better, preventing excess keratin from forming in the first place, then you will have your acne problem done and dusted. Can you do that with commonly available remedies? More on that in the next posting.

Philip Gegan

You can find out how to deal with your acne problem for good and all by knowing which points on your body to press for just 60 seconds at a time. More details are at our Home Page.

What is nature’s cure for acne? What is the treatment that, rather than fight against nature’s laws, co-operates with it? More and more people with acne problems are asking questions like this as faith in over-the-counter or even prescription medications dwindles.

When we think of a natural cure for acne, most of us think in terms of

1. keeping our skin clean through regular washing, and
2. avoiding certain foods that are thought to contain ingredients that cause, or at least encourage, acne.

Washing and cleaning the affected area regularly is naturally to be commended, but does it actually help in the fight against acne and blackheads? Possibly to reduce the scale of the problem, but not to banish it completely.

The same can be said about diet. A healthy diet is better than fast foods and take-aways, and it can certainly reduce the effects of acne, but there are few if any recorded instances of it being completely responsible for getting rid of it.

Some people ascribe acne to too much chocolate and other sugary foods. This has been shown to be completely wrong. There’s no evidence to support this at all.

What has been shown to work is literally “hands-on” help. That part of your body that is suffering from acne, whether it’s your back or your face, needs a little attention. Not just slapping on some soap and hot water and washing it off. It needs stretching a little, and some massage.

Spend a few minutes at the start and end of each day giving the affected area a massage. Gently pull and stretch your skin for a few seconds at a time. Try it, and you’ll soon discover how best to do this – it will come naturally.

It will probably be tight at first, but after a few sessions you’ll find that your skin is more supple and can be pushed and stretched easily. Don’t overdo it or pinch the skin, but keep to what is comfortable. Concentrate on the cheekbone area and along the jaw line. Below the chin and around the neck area is also a good place.

This helps your skin rid itself of excess oils and keratin, the substance which so easily blocks the pores, leading to the conditions in which acne thrives. This isn’t a miracle cure, but if you persevere you will definitely see the results you seek.

Finally, your acne may be caused or exacerbated by stress and if you think this is the case then try the following exercise. Locate the two hollow points at the base of your skull on either side of the back of your neck and press them gently but firmly for a minute at a time with your thumbs. Breathe deeply and relax. If you do this two or three times a day then after a week or less your acne will start to recede.

Find out about six other simple exercises to rid yourself of acne at PressAwayPain

Philip Gegan