Light therapy

I was going to go onto moisturisers next, but the recent nice Summer weather we have had reminded me of the light therapies that are available (I'll go back to moisturising next time!).

A number of times that I went to my doctor about my acne were in the spring. At this time she would always say "It's coming to Summer now, so the sunlight should help as well." This always struck me as kind of funny that at this time of "SUNLIGHT IS EVIL, DO NOT GO OUT WITHOUT SUNSCREEN!!" that my doctor seemed to be advocating that I actually get sunlight on my skin! Now obviously she was not saying that I should be going out and exposing my skin to as much sunlight as possible, but just day to day, the days are getting longer, less cloudy, you are going to get more sun exposure without trying.

Having looked it up briefly, there does not seem to be any evidence that more sun exposure has any benefit to curing acne. There is a type of UV ray that does kill bacteria, but this is actually filtered out by the atmosphere. And before you curse the atmosphere and start releasing CFC's and shiz, this is a good thing, those rays are extremely damaging, they would do more harm to you than good!

I think personally,I'm so fair skinned, that if I get a bit of a tan in the summer it just hides some of the redness caused by the spots. However I do not usually plan to go out and get tanned, I do try and protect my skin, especially as I burn so easily. And I don't particularly like being in pain. I do though find it unpleasant put sunscreen on my face, it feels so greasy, like it is going to clog my pores further. I haven't tried the spray on non-greasy type, I imagine they would sting like hell on the broken skin on my face? I tend to stick to wearing a hat when I know I am going to be stuck out in the sun. I see no sense in letting my skin burn and damaging it, I don't want to be all brown and wrinkly thanks.

I also believe that my acne actually get worse in the summer, or at least at the beginning, and I put this down to my hayfever. So currently at this time of year the Rapeseed is in flower, as is the grass, and my face, nose, eyes, and bizarrely my inner ears, are itching like crazy. This leads to me touching my face constantly, which I imagine is transferring dirt and causing more spots. I've gone from The Alps on my right cheek and a few rogue pimples, to have a pretty lumpy face all over right now. But I have also been working an early shift at work this week, which can make me a bit lazy when it comes to my skincare regime in the morning, so could be that? But as I experience this every year, I'm going to out it down to inappropriate touching of my face. I take antihistamines to calm it down, but it only takes away the worse of the symptoms, there is still some low level itching going on.

Away from sunlight, there are actually range of light therapies available. Some of which you can try at home, some very expensive, some not so.

I myself tried the Lumie Clear a year to 18 months ago. So this is a bright lamp consisting of red and blue LED's, the red to soothe inflammation and the blue to kill bacteria. This treatment appealed to me as I would not have to use soaps or creams that would cause problems with my sensitive skin. This Lumie Clear in particular appealed compared to the others as it was treating a larger area for fairly reasonable price (at around £150). It is for the treatment of mild to moderate acne, so if yours is severe, this won't be of any use to you I am afraid.

If you check Amazon it has some pretty good reviews, a lot saying that it has at least reduced the number of spots appearing. So I believe that this can definitely work for some sufferers.

It did not work for me. But I believe this was MY fault rather than the products. The main problem I have, is that for this type of treatment to work (and I suppose with any treatment), is that you have to be consistent and follow the instructions exactly. This lamp needs to be used every day. And I am a very forgetful person. A good elephant I would not make. Also the time it took will also cause problems if you are one of the world's ultimate procrastinators. As I am. 

If you only want to treat a small patch of skin, it will take 15 minutes, so no time at all, and you can sit and watch tv as you do this. If you want to treat a larger area of skin, this is where you will have problems. You have two options for this. You can sit and treat it patch by patch with the lamp held against your skin. Each patch will take 15 minutes, so your whole face will take a minimum of an hour. The other option is you can set the lamp up further away and you can do your whole face at the same time. However, the further away the lamp is, the longer it will take. So again, doing your whole face like this will take at least an hour. Except this way, you are unable to perform any other tasks at the same time. The lights are damaging to your eyes. So you need to wear some lovely yellow goggles during the treatment. If you enjoy audio books, this will be fine. But reading or writing is impossible, the light is too bright, and you would either be holding the book in the way or bowing your head putting half of it in shadow. All you could do is listen to the TV. So for these reasons I just ended up using it less and less until I eventually gave up.

So although this therapy has not worked for me personally, I totally put it down to my fault, and I would still recommend it as an option to the acne blighted sensitived skinned out there! :)

Alps update

At the beginning of this week I honestly thought The Alps were improving, but no, at least seven new spots have appeared in the last couple of days. 

The positivity I was feeling from starting this blog has very quickly dissipated. Think I will be having one of my ugly days tomorrow! Maybe I'll go out cycling and try and prove my fitness, seeing as its possible to actually make a difference there, it might make me feel better. 

My engagement has added another worry though. Maybe this is a bit vain, and the day is not about how I look, but I really don't want to be a spotty bride! But thats all I can think of at the moment. We're not even getting married any time soon!

Also, there is a spider on the ceiling above my bed. It's not big enough to warrant its removal from the house, but I still wouldn't want it dropping on my face as I sleep...

Washing without soap and water!

So of course with acne I want to keep my skin as clean as possible, but with having skin so sensitive that water will dry it out, finding a product that I can use that won't make my face feel like it is flaking off shortly afterwards is a bit of a nightmare.

Like every acne sufferer, I have tried a tonne of different spot treatments over the years (Clean and Clear, et al.), and I have not ever found even one that I have been able to use. I've learned that if a product makes my skin feel tight after the first use, I should just stop using it immediately! It's just not worth continuing onto the later problems of itchy skin, then red skin (lumpy too if I am lucky), and then flaky skin. Moisturising afterwards does not solve the problem either, that will relieve the tightness usually, but the itching will carry on, and then I'm just constantly touching my face, returning the dirt I've just cleaned away...

I've found now that a cream type cleanser followed by a toner is my best bet (And then of course a moisturiser!). And I imagine there will be a lot of people that will be yelling at me that is the sort of skin care regime I should have been doing from the start! However this is not perfect, I was recommended the Seaweed skin clarifying cleanser on a visit to Body shop. It did not give me the problems I listed above, but after a few uses, it started to sting around my eyes sooo bad! It was still too harsh.

What I DID discover from The Body Shop at the end of last year though is their Cucumber Cleansing milk and Freshening Water, and what a God send!! 

I love how smells, after around 8 months of use it has not given me any of my usual skin complaints, and it still manages to keep my skin clean! Annnnd....

.... they don't sell it anymore. 

I found it whilst browsing a sale Body Shop were doing and it had amazing reviews, so I gave it a try. Sadly it seems it was on sale it was being discontinued. Thankfully I managed to grab myself about a years supply before it disappeared, and there is a bit on eBay still, but I'm not sure what I will do when it disappears! I might try their Aloe Vera cleanser next.

I am very disappointed in you though Body Shop. :(

I had been going to say earlier that normal soap is out of the question also, though thinking about it, I think I jumped mainly to the usual spot treatment products without trying many, so maybe there is a soap out there somewhere that is gentle enough for me to use? 

Finally I'm going to end with the absolute worst product I have ever tried, and it's this Deep Action Cleansing Lotion by Superdrug. PURE EVIL in a plastic bottle. As soon as I put it on it felt like my face was on fire, tried to wash it off, but it was too late, I just had to wait for the pain to subside. I checked the ingredients after and it contained both Salicylic acid and alcohol. Really should have checked that first I guess.

Why I have started this...

From the age of 13/14, my otherwise absolutely adorable face has been blighted by acne. There have been periods of it being quite calm and others of it flaring up, but it has always been there is some way. I wanted to start this blog as a way of hopefully helping me to deal with it, and gather my thoughts as to what I think works at keeping it under control, and what definitely doesn't. And if there are others out there that read this and can share their successes and failures with treatments too, then that would be amazing!

I am currently going through probably one of the worse flare ups I've had in a long time. I have a very stubborn little patch on my right cheek which I am affectionately referring to as "The Alps".

I also have the added problem of having crazy sensitive skin, to the point that even water makes my skin feel dry! This means that a lot of products/treatments are just not suitable for me to use. Especially anything with salicylic acid or alcohol in them. Which are probably the most common ingredients in acne/spot treatments. I think I've found a regime that works and doesn't make my skin worse now, but I'll go into that in another post.

I now there will be many who will think that the amount of spots I have isn't that bad, and I know that I do not have the worst case of acne ever. I am grateful that the acne I have is not any worse than this, but what I do have is still more than enough to upset me at times. Acne also scars, and over the last decade, those scars build up! Often what bothers me more than how it looks is the pain it causes.

And as a newly engaged girl (yeah I had to show that off! ;) ), it would be nice to be able to walk down the aisle one day with not quite such a lumpy face!

I'll leave my first post at this for now as I should have been in bed an hour ago! Ready for that first Monday back at work after a weeks holiday. *sigh*

And I apologise now, but I am not a natural writer, so this post is probably a bit incoherent and all over the place...