Hormonal Acne: 2. Problematic Cycles

So, although it all started with puberty, for most of the young women acne remained somewhere in the past. They won’t be able to tell you when they stopped suffering from acne.
Thus, many women pass into adulthood without outgrowing their acne. Other may not develop this skin disease until their 20s and 30s, experiencing persistent breakouts a week before their period.
These big differences may vary from woman to woman and they show how different any woman is from another, how different each organism and each chemistry is from another!
During the course of a normal menstrual cycle (this is the case when the woman is not taking any kind of hormonal pills, such as birth control pills and others like that), estrogen levels peak at mid-cycle and then decline as the woman nears her period.

After ovulation, the woman’s ovaries begin to produce progesterone, which is another feminine hormone and which has the role to stimulate the sebaceous glands. So progesterone makes the sebaceous glands to produce more sebum and with the extra sebum comes also acne.
Thus, hormones are also responsible for acne in a percentage of pregnant women, as well, because the sebaceous glands go into high gear during the third trimester of the pregnancy, causing oily skin and frequent breakouts.
Some women might also experience acne after menopause, because of the estrogen levels’ beginning to taper off and testosterone becomes the dominant hormone within their bodies.

Hormonal Acne. Women Only; Guys Allowed

Hormonal acne is represented by the acne breakouts that appear only before and during the women’s period.
This kind of acne is caused by the hormonal imbalance produced in the women’s bodies during this time. Once this period is over, acne slowly disappears as if it were never there. Until next month, women will be free to enjoy their lives as girlfriends, wives, sisters or daughters!
As girls and women might have already noticed hormonal acne is likely to fail to respond to traditional therapies, such as topical retinoids and systemic or topical antibiotics.

Physicians usually have about six clues that can help them to identify whether your acne is influenced by hormones or not. These clues are the following:

• Adult-onset acne or acne breakouts that appear for the first time in adult women
• Acne flare-ups preceding the menstrual cycle
• A history of irregular menstrual cycles
• Increased facial oiliness
• Hirsutism or excessive growth of hair, or hair in unusual places
• Elevated levels of certain androgens in the blood stream

Hormonally influenced acne typically appears for the first time around the age of 20 – 25, although it can strike as well both teen girls and mature women. However, it becomes most persistent in women over the age of 30.
In these cases patients are usually experiencing acne lesions on the lower face, that is especially the chin and the jaw line. While some women may have breakouts also on their chest and back, most of them have acne blemishes exclusively on the face.
Hormonally-influenced acne is usually moderate and it gets limited to inflammatory papules, as well as small inflammatory nodules and occasional comedones. However, the women’s faces aren’t perfect anymore and this makes hormonally-influenced acne even more irritating then “normal” acne.
When you know that you suffer from acne, you’re at least involved in fighting it and you hope that someday it will all disappear. But when you suffer from time to time because of this irritating disease, it is even more annoying. Acne becomes like a real phantom that haunts your from time to time. As if that period weren’t enough painful and irritating!
We will next present a scenario that will introduce you to the inner mechanism of hormonally-influenced acne.

7. Thyroid Preparations

Thyroid preparations are represented by some thyroid medications, such as Thiouracil or Thiourea, and they are used for stimulating the thyroid gland in patients with low thyroid function.
However, these preparations are known for triggering acne. If taken in large quantities, iodine, which also helps to regulate the thyroid function, might as well cause acne breakouts.

As you may have already noticed, the medications that are likely to trigger acne as well, as a side effect, are prescribed for very severe disorders, diseases and illnesses.
In this context it is probably obvious that it becomes less appropriate to worry about acne; your life is in danger and it would be abnormal to stop the medication because it causes also acne.
We’ve presented these medications only so that you could know about their side effects.
You should always fight for your life. And when you get better you’ll have enough time to worry and destroy also this irritating but insignificant disorder that is called acne.

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