EPTSo just a little background, I had acne problems since I was 13 and there was all that action of putting facial products on my face just to get rid of it with most facial treatment sets costing upwards of $100. As usual, none worked. Sometimes it got even worse and I really hated the feeling of having to go to sleep with my face decked out with oily facial products. It was really terrible and I soon ditched the treatments after a few weeks of using.
I was fortunate to not have very severe acne with usually 2-3 pimples up at a time but once those 3 were about gone, another few more would pop up. Since it takes time for the previous ones to heal, the constant popping up of new pimples made my face look totally unpleasing and it kinda made me a little self-judgmental. Probably for those who don't suffer from acne wouldn't understand but it really affects your self-esteem - well for me it did and it didn't help that nothing that I was using was helping.
After having exhausted nearly every convenient option, I looked into trying acutane or those nasty facial laser treatments that work to destroy the bacteria on the face. I even looked up on the side-effects and all and I saw that acutane was really bad for the body with so many horrid side effects. Even laser treatments would probably be better than acutane apart from the cost. With all this in mind, I did some intense research and self-experimentation on what was the whole deal about acne and how I could get rid of it. So here we go.
1. Stop consuming too much sweet foods
This was the first surprising thing that I found out. I read a few research papers showing that their studies indicate that excessive amounts of glucose in the blood lead to high insulin levels, which for some reason cause your sebaceous glands to be over-active. Over-secretion of your natural facial oils cause your pores to get clogged up along with dead skin on the surface of your skin and these are sites where the bacteria can grow and attack. The red and painful spots form as an immune response from your body to get rid of it.
For starters, I was a sweet tooth all my life. I have this affection towards Marks and Spencer's candy especially Percy Pigs and Percy's Tails. All those good stuff. If you are drinking too much canned soda or taking in too much candy, probably a good start would be to limit your consumption of these things because they might really be the root cause for your acne. It is okay to take sweet things once in a while but try not to do it too often. I still indulge in sweet things from time to time and I still do get the occasional pimple coming after that.
2. Be gentle to your face
Back in the day, I used really abrasive methods to wash my face. I used to buy those facial products embedded with scrubbing agents in them and I would put it on a cloth to scrub my face. Probably in a bid to remove my white heads by scrubbing my face off.
I chanced upon this gentle method of washing and treating my face from acne.org. You don't have to get the products from that website(I did end up buying it from there but I found that it didn't work really well for me) but the principle of being gentle with your face and how you should wash it was quite startling. It was really difficult to get used to it at first but since I had been really abrasive and rough with my face for the past 10 years or so, what's the harm in trying a simple change?
Surprisingly, it worked really well for me. As I started to become more gentle, my face started to get a bit better with the white heads just falling off on its own. I used to have really bad black heads on my nose but with the gentle approach, they started popping up and flaking away on their own.
3. Facial Products to Use
Just to make things clear from this point, I am not trying to sell anything here. This is basically what worked best for me. It might work best for some here or for some you might need something stronger etc.
Like what I mentioned earlier, I did get the treatment set from acne.org but I found that it really didn't quite suit me. The hydrogen peroxide(h2o2) cream that was given was still slightly oily and so was the moisturizer. Even though they were supposed to be non-oil based, I still found it a bit greasy which aggravated my problems a little.
I did some research on h2o2 and found that it was a really good antiseptic to get rid of the bacteria on the face. I decided to look for some cheaper and less greasy alternative and I found that OXY 10 worked best for me. I have read from some research that they have shown that the effectiveness of h2o2 is the same for all concentrations sold but since I was really desperate at that point, I didn't quite care actually but for starters, maybe you can try OXY 5 or another brand of non-greasy h2o2 at 2.5%.
So with OXY in hand, I basically followed the exact regiment at acne.org but without actually using any of their products and I also didn't use a moisturizer. My face was still peeling even with a moisturizer and it made my skin feel thicker so I decided to leave out on it.
4. Be Patient. Start Slow.
Honestly, this was the toughest part. It was really tempting at first to put the whole tube of OXY on my face but be gentle and start slow. Use a small amount once a day before you sleep every 2 or even 3 days if you are just starting out. OXY dries the skin quite easily and putting too much can cause a burning sensation on your skin and cause redness the next day.
If all goes well you should begin to see an improvement within 2 days. For me, my white heads starting falling off on the 3rd or 4th day. If you are not getting any new pimples within 1-2 weeks, then you are winning the battle. As for me, I noticed I stopped getting new pimples within a week from doing the regiment. It will probably take a month or sometimes longer for the pimples to subside and many more months, sometimes 2-3 for the scars to disappear.
If you've read this far, you are probably wanting some before after photos. What for follow all these if there are no results to show right? So here are two sets of photos of my face which are 5 months apart.
Before
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![[image loading]](http://s129.photobucket.com/user/Jeromemave/media/2013-02-02111455.jpg.html)
![[image loading]](http://s129.photobucket.com/user/Jeromemave/media/2013-02-02111452.jpg.html)
After
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![[image loading]](http://s129.photobucket.com/user/Jeromemave/media/20131116_213245.jpg.html)
![[image loading]](http://s129.photobucket.com/user/Jeromemave/media/20131116_213225.jpg.html)
There you have it. Hopefully this will help out those who need it as much as it did help me.
Good day
EDIT: I forgot to mention that the reason why I said $10 was because the only amount of money I spent on this new regiment was $10, which was the bottle of OXY10.
![[image loading]](http://asplendidoccasion.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/oxy.jpg)
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