PMS is often associated with greater acne breakouts, moodiness, and in general side effects and problems.  Most women experience it at some point and it basically includes acne, bloating, depression, anxiety, backaches, breast swelling and tenderness, cramps, cravings, fatigue, headaches, insomnia, swelling of the extremities, and behavioral changes as well as sexual changes.  It happens to the best of us.  This being said, there have been various treatments, both natural and prescription as well as over the counter at pharmacies that have been suggested to address your PMS and other needs in general.  Apparently you are supposed to avoid a lot of sugar, alcohol, and caffeine.  And you should address the body’s natural need for more iron, vitamin B, and magnesium, all things that your body loses during the menstrual cycle.  Apparently, 1200mg of calcium has also been known to help to relieve 50% of PMS symptoms in 3 months periods of time.  Flaxseed has also relieved it, and these ingredients are all also good for the skin in their own forms.  In addition, they say that you can also reduce problems by following a vegetarian diet, reducing fat intake, increasing your natural intake of soy, supplementing with vitamins and minerals, and exercising daily, all things that will also help you to improve your skin and acne problems.

I was a crappy teenager.  I’m perfectly willing to admit it.  And frankly, I’m inclined in some ways to say that in 99% of cases, you should never buy your kids expensive acne treatments.  Wait until college and then make them buy it for themselves.  There are some really good acne treatments that actually cost a lot less.  But the fact is that teenagers are not going to be consistent.  I was never consistent, my siblings were never consistent, and we were fairly lucky in not having that bad of skin.  But while we were always complaining about how this treatment didn’t work or that treatment didn’t work, we weren’t using them every day.  I would miss days a lot, and it’s no wonder why even though many should have worked, they didn’t.  Now when they caused irritation, that was a legitimate reason not to use them, and many did.  But seriously, kids just aren’t going to be all that dedicated. It was about the time I hit college that I became a little more regular and even obsessive about doing things for myself and remembering this, that, and the other thing.  You become an adult and take on certain responsibilities.  But until then, it’s honestly a waste of your money.

With anything, there is a line.  Even with the best treatments of any kind, you can quite easily go overboard, and then you are obviously not helping anyone, especially not yourself.  For example, over-washing can cause your skin to go into overdrive and produce more oils, or it can just react by getting dried out and damaged in general, and then you have redness, peeling, and other unpleasant symptoms of that particular problem.  Either way, it really doesn’t help your skin, as over scrubbing likewise does not help your skin.  It can strip away more layers to actually be harmful.  The third most prevalent mistake is using the wrong product, and yes, using benzoyl peroxide is always the wrong product in general.  If it can damage your skin, especially with sensitive skin, it is literally always the wrong product.  Likewise, using the wrong makeup is a big mistake.  The wrong makeup can damage your skin, it can cause clogged pores, it’s not a pretty subject in general.  All of these things can be the biggest mistakes you could make for your skin, and they can cause greater acne along with more long term problems and damage.  So it’s important to choose the right things.

Quite recently, my friend came up with the idea that girls don’t have as much acne because we don’t sweat.  It’s one of those idiot truths only he believes is true.  I mean girls often cover it up with makeup, so it’s harder to tell.  They have male makeup, but it’s a bit awkward to say the least.  This being said, women actually do often produce fewer oils, because testosterone, which is naturally in higher levels in men, is often responsible for this phenomenon in some ways.  But as far as sweating less, which is often related to acne, I don’t know about that.  And as far as not suffering from acne, girls definitely suffer from acne.  The majority of the “testimonials” for major acne products don’t come from men, they come from women!  Frankly, maybe women are just more public in general about sharing their good experiences.  That I wouldn’t be surprised by, we do a lot of stupid things.  But all of these things were definitely pointed out to him when he came to this conclusion, by all of the girls in the friends group as well as at his work where he also shared this amazing idea.

All I hear about lately on the radio is the Mario Badescu line.  There are hair stylists talking about how for skin it’s the best possible line and it’s cheap.  My first reaction is what would a hair stylist actually professionally speaking know about skincare and acne.  But brushing that aside, I decided to really check it out for my own possible benefit.  This being said, the Mario Badescu products are not cheap.  One of their kits is $77!  I buy kits now that are extremely popular and have big names for about $20.  So that’s not really a comparable thing I guess.  That being said, I still gave it a fair chance.  But then I found out that all their products are basically based around one ingredient: salicylic acid.  Why am I paying for several products that are all basically the same thing!  This being said, you can understand that I got sick of the Mario Badescu line really fast, especially with the commonality of their only active ingredient.  I wouldn’t recommend using their products, especially when you could get the same thing for cheaper.  It’s the nature of the market.  And apparently, they haven’t yet faced that simple fact of life.

Now the area around your eyes is extremely sensitive, and while things react on the rest of your body in terms of allergies at times, it is more likely to happen around the eyes, and you really should react and should get it taken care of to avoid it spreading actually too close to the eyes should you have a problem. This being said, my acne always reacts badly anyway and quite frankly bug bites for me always react badly anyway.  It’s a simple fact of life that I have come to accept.  However, I’ve never had bites or zits happen around the eyes.  I have recently seen what can happen.  A child actually who really doesn’t react to anything like that and isn’t old enough to have acne, somehow managed to get a bug bite right under each eye at the same time.  That is some crappy luck to say the least.  But cortisone wasn’t working, nothing was working.  It swelled up like nothing you’ve ever seen and even started getting around the eyes.  Now they will deal with allergies at that time and quickly, and with antibiotics, an epi shot, or something, it will go down.  But it’s something to address before it gets that bad whether acne or something else.

Sometimes it is honestly beyond me how dermatologists work, think, function.  They use prescriptions of course, because obviously if you were to use a natural treatment, why would you really need to go visit them, and moreover, I don’t really think they do much studying on the outside options, because they are encouraged to believe only in prescriptions.  There are some doctors that are DO’s rather than MD’s, and they tend to learn while in school to actually explore homeopathic and other natural remedies as well as the traditional prescription options no matter what field they happen to be in.  However, the regular MD will not.  This being said, the natural logic would state that if something doesn’t work, you should probably try something else.  This is why it is so beyond me the way some dermatologists work.  My dermatologist was fine in most cases, and the fact that he looked like a bug didn’t deter from his expertise.  However, thinking back, every single treatment he gave me was some form of retinol, otherwise known as vitamin A.  He never resorted to Accutane thankfully.  But honestly.  I mean really.  I don’t use benzoyl peroxide because I tried a few natural treatments that used it and didn’t work.  So why would I continue using another product using those?  Likewise, it is beyond me as to why when vitamin A didn’t work the first 10 times, why another vitamin A product would magically work.

Echinacea has long been a rather popular choice in bulk herbs meant for the generalized improvement of the skin.  It is typically sold in capsules, and it has also been known as coneflower.  Essentially speaking, Echinacea has long been used in traditional medicine, and it is available through various online merchants.  It has been used to treat acne as well as sores and burns, as it helps your skin to heal at a faster rate without leaving scars behind for the most part.  It has also been used for snakebites, insect bites, and stings as it actually reduces inflammation in many cases.  It can be certified kosher, and it is sold only as organic.   It has been sold for multiple purposes, mostly skin related, and some would even say it could relieve eczema in some cases.  It improves the general look and feel of the skin, and Echinacea may have well deserved its place.  There are some supplements of course that are only used now because people believe that traditional medicine must be right.  But they don’t actually have any proven or provable properties.  However, Echinacea may be one of the exceptions to this general rule, which is without question a good thing.

Stop popping your zits, it’s really that simple.  I mean I had one zit that I thought was a normal zit, no, it’s one that burrows deep below the surface and it’s guaranteed to cause scarring even if you just touch it in general terms.  That’s never obviously good. But even with normal zits, you can cause serious damage and scarring, and frankly if you’ve ever noticed, when you do that, it causes the zit to often get infected, to break out more, and to stay around longer in general.  This is because a lot of things build up in your nails, on your fingers, etc.  It is not really sanitary in general terms.  You can disinfect, and it’s better to use a hot wash cloth instead of just your fingers.  But at the same point in time, you are inevitably causing a certain amount of skin damage when you do this, and it’s far better to just leave it alone and not pop the zits in any way in the first place to avoid all sorts of problems and side effects in general.  If you feel the need, let your dermatologist determine if it’s even a good thing for him to use some of his tools.

I don’t use this particular mask.  But my mom does, and my sisters do.  Unfortunately, I’m allergic to milk.  However, yogurt masks, if you’re not like me, are great.  They apparently give your skin a cool and refreshed feeling while really showing immediate and future benefits in general.  You use a simple blend of 1 cup yogurt and ½ cup oatmeal.  You use oatmeal, because as you may have learned from past treatments among other things, actually speaking, it helps to reduce inflammation, reduce redness, and it’s often used on skin with psoriasis, chicken pox, and quite a few other general skin conditions whether temporary or more permanent and suffered from on a regular basis.  And of course, yogurt has certain nutrients you will have a hard time finding in many other places.  With this particular mask, you only have to leave it on for about a minute to let it soak in.  But after that, you simply wipe it away with a warm wash cloth, which helps your skin in and of itself, and then you pat it dry.  Then you can apply any other products you happen to use and really get on with your day in general.  In general terms, this helps you to see the success you are looking for.