Pimples? Treat Them Right

Are those over-the-counter products making your acne worse than ever? Here’s how you can take better care of your skin.

- Rachana John

Acne may have started in your teens, the time when hormones and age meet to create havoc on your unblemished skin, but for some people, this problem becomes an on-going fact of life. Acne, or pimples, as they are more commonly known, are one of the most difficult things teenagers get to deal with, apart from all the dramatic physical and psychological changes one goes through while coming of age.

These inflamed and sometimes painful eruptions spread quickly and affect almost all of us at some point in our life. Some are lucky to have rare breakouts while some get to wage wars with it for quite some years to come! Its exacerbation can sometimes lead to social withdrawal and even depression in rare cases.

Either way, most people find them embarrassing or bothersome. So how do we get rid of them? Though we religiously follow every infomercial and read every magazine, we are still left struggling, looking for an acne treatment that actually works. In the process, we end up exposing our skin to innumerable harsh chemicals that damage our skin and dry it up. If left untreated, acne can lead to disfiguring scarring which can be a challenge to treat. And we still don’t get to win the acne epidemic on our face!

First, let’s talk about some of the myths associated with acne. As the first minute pimples start showing up on your face, everyone, starting right from your mother and down to your best friend has a suggestion on what’s causing the breakout! Weird admonishments like ‘you need to wash your face more often’,‘you need to cut down on fried foods’ and ‘you eat too many chocolates’ keep ringing in your ears all day- and nagging reaches a new high. Though these are mainly myths, you need to get yourself armed with the right information before you can think of tackling this problem.