In many of the books I have read on acne treatments, the common theme is that acne takes weeks to develop and weeks to heal. This sounds daunting when you are faced with an upcoming, important event and have a pimple on your face that is staring at you every time you look in a mirror. What if this theory was incorrect? Could there be something else that causes acne to come and go at will?
When my son was sixteen, he showed me that there is an acne solution out there, that is quick and does not require drugs. His acne was noticeable, likely mild to moderate on a scale of severity. He went away for a 10 day period and came back with essentially no acne without using any medication. In fact, he noticed that his acne had improved within a few days of leaving on vacation and I noticed it was essentially gone after he arrived back home after a ten day absence. We also noticed that within a week of being home his acne was back at its normal level.
My observations are summarized as follows. We live in Canada, and one of the school programs my son is involved with planned to spend eight days in and around Paris, France at the end of March. When I dropped him off at the airport the acne on his face was low to moderate and when I saw him again, the first thing I noticed was that his face was essentially acne free.
When I reviewed a few books on acne causes, I keep seeing statements like:
By the time you see an obvious blemish - it is already many weeks old
Treatments take time - sometimes up to six to eight weeks
It may take several months before you notice significant improvement
Six to eight weeks of treatment may be required
These statements do not seem to line up with our observations and while they may be correct, based on the information available at the time, the information that I have seems to indicate there is a faster way to reduce acne.
Now there are a number of factors that could lead to this acne solution.
The first that I thought about was food. I believe the amount of milk and junk food consumed was drastically reduced in Europe where the price and availability of such items, on a school trip, would make these items less likely to be consumed. So once we realized this, he stopped drinking milk for one week after we noticed his acne coming back. Unfortunately, this did not provide him with the acne solution he was looking for and his acne was not reduced. He never got around to eliminating the junk food from his diet.
Next there should have been a reduction in stress as he was surrounded by his peers, had no school work due, did not have to work and was free of his parents.
He likely had far less sleep per night. When I did a similar high school trip we were only getting about 6 to 7 hours of sleep a night and when I returned to Canada, I slept for around 24 hours.
The weather and humidity in France are a lot different than in Canada at that time of year.
So while there are potentially a number of factors which could have improved his acne it is still unclear what triggered the reduction. We know it was not the use of medication. What was obvious was that within a week of returning his acne was back to normal. From my view point there was some environmental change either food, stress or climate which resulted in a reduction in his acne. No drugs or topical ointment were needed to make this change. Many of the changes cannot be easily reproduced so it is difficult to come to a firm conclusion.
In closing, if you are looking for a natural acne treatment, provided you feel that it is a wise thing to do, you may wish to experiment with your own lifestyle changes prior to using over the counter medication to reduce your acne.
Mark spends his time looking after his kids and wrote http://www.nowacnefree.com/ to help him understand the causes of acne and how he can help his kids through it.
