Antibiotics and Acne What You Need To Know

For some, suffering from acne becomes such a problem that no cream or ointment seems to be able to cure the problem. A lifetime of struggling with painful and unsightly spots has lead to medical research into medicinal help for acne, and is therefore available to those suffering from long term acne problems.

Before rushing to the doctor, however, there are a few things one should bear in mind. It is preferable to only view antibiotics for acne as an absolute last measure, when all else has failed. Antibiotics are powerful drugs and have side effects, and repeated antibiotic use can also build up a tolerance that could be problematic should you suffer a serious infection and need antibiotic treatment. There is a point, however, when it is natural to want to solve an acne problem once and for if nothing else appears to be working; in these situations, an appointment with a doctor is an apposite way of proceeding.

There are several different antibiotics licensed for the treatment of acne. As with any drug, they vary wildly in their side effects and also in their efficacy in different people, and there is no guarantee that the first one you are prescribed will be the one to solve the problem. It may well be a case of trial and error, but by taking steps to treatment acne at its root problem – with the primary infection of the hair follicle – the problem can usually be erased.

There are two types of antibiotics most commonly used for acne treatment. The first port of call for most doctors is tetracycline, which is the most used antibiotic for acne in the world and also one of the most effective. It does, however, have its drawbacks; tetracycline needs to be taken on an empty stomach, and cannot be taken by pregnant women or children.

For those for which tetracycline is not applicable, the second most commonly used antibiotic is erythromycin. Unlike tetracycline, this can be taken by anyone – including mothers to be – and can be taken at any time, rather than just with food. Clinical studies have shown it to be minutely less effective than tetracycline, but the difference is minimal and it is an effective solution for those who cannot take tetracycline.

The Doctor Knows Best – Sometimes

If you are one of the many people who has problem skin, then you have in all probability spent a lot of time – and money – trying to correct the problem. Certainly when the problem is a new one, it is easy to get unrealistic hopes about the products available on the market which insist that they are the only one you will ever need, that they will catch and cure your problem and enable you to go about life without any further concerns. But the difficulty with mass marketed skin care solutions is that they are just that – mass marketed. Over the counter remedies for problem skin have the unavoidable drawback of trying to be all things to all customers – often with the result that they do not do much for some.

In such a situation, if you have found that mass marketed skin care products have failed you, there is a solution that some people don’t give much thought, but which can be hugely beneficial, and it is a quite simple one – ask your doctor. If you have a problem with your eyes, you will go and see an optician. If you have a problem with your skin, you could go and see an epidemiologist. But in the first instance, your General Practitioner can often diagnose and help you treat whatever is causing your problem skin. As a GP, there is little that they have not seen hundreds of times before. So you can tell them what is going on, and they can point you to a solution with a minimum of fuss.

This will often mean a prescribed solution. It may come as a bit of a shock to have something prescribed for a situation that many people seem to deal with without anything more drastic than a trip to the supermarket. But often the problem will be something more specialised than the mass market really addresses. And this can mean taking oral medication, or using a lotion prescribed by your GP. If either of these is the case, the advantage is that the prescribed solution will work more quickly – and more completely – than whatever you might find in the Skin Care aisle at the supermarket.