Adult Acne – does it really exist and is there a treatment for it?

As a teen you can’t wait to leave this horrible age: your face is acne ridden and you can’t stand people even looking at you. As soon as you will hit 20, all your acne worries will be gone, as being an adult acne doesn’t come near you again. You will finally be able to get all the chicks you can’t even approach now. Or so you think.

You see, adult acne is very real and if you had acne in your teens, is it very possible that you will have acne later on as well.

Adult acne has pretty much the same causes as teen acne: too much sebum oil, which ends up clogging the pores. More about it is explained in this article, so I won’t go into details here, but suffice to say that sadly no one is safe from acne right until the ripe age of 60 or more.

While teen acne is equally distributed among boys and girl, adult acne hits mostly women. Here are some interesting statistics that various studies have shown based on age groups, % of women with acne and % of men with acne:

• age 20-29 – 50.9% women, 42.5% men
• age 30-39 – 35.2% women, 20.1% men
• age 40-49 – 26.3% women, 12% men
• age over 50 – 15.3% women, 7.3% men

As you can see from the table above, women indeed do get adult acne more often than men.

So what about acne treatment? Can you use the same stuff you’ve been using all these years as a teen?

Well, not quite. As a matter of fact, most teen acne products are not recommended for adults, so when you’re in the pharmacy looking for suitable acne treatment, stay away from products labeled ‘for teen acne’. Teen skin is quite oily so these products have an effect of drying the over-oily skin. Adult skin is rather dry by itself, so applying teen creams on your face will damage your skin instead of help. However, with a bit of time and proper care, adult acne can also be treated in most of the cases.

For mild acne, over the counter topical products (they are called topical because they are applied directly to the skin) usually suffice. The two common types are benzoyl peroxide and salicylic acid found in various cleansers, toning solutions, creams and lotions. Some of the brands that contain these ingredients are L’oreal brands, Murad Acne Complex and Neutrogena Healthy Skin.

Prescription topical products, called retinoids, are also commonly used in mild to severe acne. These help regenerate your cells faster, and also slow down pore blockages, which usually result in acne. These products tend to keep acne at bay quite nicely. An added benefit of prescription medication of acne is reducing wrinkles and lines on the face, which makes the skin look younger. Not a bad side-effect, I must add!

If your acne is not improving, and it’s quite severe by now, you need to resort to acne oral medication. Everybody has heard of Accutane (outside of the US is mostly called Raccutane) and many horror stories have been told about this product.

Truth is, Accutane works in a very harsh way, killing acne from inside out. So this treatment is really not for everybody. But if nothing else helps, the dermatologist will prescribe you Accutane as a last resort. For example cystic acne is routinely treated with Accutane and the healing rate is quite high. If you only have occasional breakouts, do not use Accutane.

Sometimes you might even get a prescription of oral contraceptives to manage your battle against adult acne. This is mostly prescribed for women who get pimples before or during their monthly cycles.

If you’re way past the time you would need oral contraceptives, i.e. you are in your post-menopausal stage, a hormone replacement therapy (HRT) might work to clean up your acne. This treatment works best if you also have other symptoms such as hot flashes, hair thinning, or mood swings.

So you have to remember that as you grow to ecome an adult you might more often than not get adult acne. If you had acne as a teen, you might be more susceptible to acne as an adult, but it’s not a fast rule.
No matter what, if you have acne, there is help for you. There are several treatments for you depending which type of acne you have, and there is always a cure, even for very severe acne. So do not despair. If you see you are getting adult acne, go get help, either from your pharmacy for topical cures, or go visit your dermatologist who can safely assess the severity of your acne and give you proper treatment.