Hormone Therapy As Acne Treatment – Acne Be Gone

Hormone therapy is used to reverse production of excessive male hormones in women. This is important for controlling and treating acne because excessive male hormones (androgen particularly) often leads to enlargement of oil-producing glands. In turn, such enlargements produce more sebum, which leads to acne breakouts.

You will see that there are many different forms of hormone therapy. Birth control pills or oral contraceptives are the most common of these treatments. Basically what happens is that these pills mop up free androgen that could be circulating in the bloodstream. Oral contraceptives block the male hormones that make the perfect acne forming environment so this is why it is used as acne control.

For years and years now there have been an increasing number of doctors which have given birth control pills as an off-lab acne treatment and hormone therapy. Even the US Food and Drug Administration has approved prescribing some birth control pills as acne medications. If you have failed at other options this could be a last resort that is prescribed to you.

What Makes Birth Control Pills Effective?

Because birth control pills are made up of estrogen and progestin they alter the natural reproduction cycle and hormonal patterns in women. Most of these pills have etradiol and this is an estrogen booster. These pills are pretty much meant to lower the level of testosterone in the body and to improve hormone-caused acne breakouts. After the production of the male hormone is suppressed the production of oil in the sebaceous gland is also reduced greatly.

There’s no doubt that oral contraceptives are helpful in eliminating acne problems, especially in women who suffer from polycystic ovarian syndrome. Some oral contraceptives have progesterone that limit or regulate androgen hormones in the body to lower acne breakout activity. In this regard, excessive hair growth is also controlled.

However, it still is a must to get a prescription before taking birth control pills and other methods of hormone therapy to treat acne. The doctor could prescribe a particular brand that would surely work as cure for acne problems. Beware because not all oral contraceptives bring about acne treatment. Some could actually make the problem worse.

Usage and Directions

Most of the time you are going to have to take the pills each day at the same time of day on a 28 day cycle. Some pills that you get will have 28 pills while others only will provide 21 since 7 of the days you would only take a placebo which serves as a reminder for the other 21 days. You need to make sure that you take the pills correctly or you may not get the results that you want.

You also need to think about the fact that although birth control pills are meant to be a cure for acne you will not see results that happen overnight. The effects that you really want to see probably will not start to show up for about three months and sometimes it can take even longer. Another thing to remember is that acne breakouts can actually worsen before it get better. This is why it is important that you be properly advised before you decide to use this method as an acne treatment.

Potential Side Effects

Just because the use of oral contraceptives could be effective for acne treatment doesn’t mean that there are not possible side effects. You may experience such things as headaches, depression, higher blood pressure, tenders in your breasts, mood swing and more such as weight gain.

Birth control pills could be perfect as acne treatment for the long term, especially for women who also need to prevent unwanted pregnancy at the same time. Such pills are ideal if a woman normally experiences acne breakouts during menstruation and ovulation.

To learn more about about acne treatment visit YourZits.com, where more information is provided on topics about getting rid of acne.