I have recently been to the big Cosmetix conference in Adelaide. A conference where everyone in the beauty trade come to, doctors, nurses, beauty therapists and we learn about all the latest treatments, leaning towards the lectures that are more those that we are interested in therefore I was in most of the lectures for injecting of course. I have learned so many things it was excellent!! I had the opportunity to sit with Dr Douglas Grose, who is the ASAP developer, and discussed acne at length with him. He said there is no one sure-fire fix for acne, as different treatments work for different people….however using a range of treatments against it seems to work the best….he advises microdermabrasion treatments, peels, skin treatments, and if you are on Doxycycline antibiotics sometimes there is a good result to change over to Bactrim at the highest dose available.

I have started working at Skin Fit at Smailes Farm in Takapuna, a gorgeous modern clean-lined white clinic, they have all the mod cons…….I took Alex over there for an IPL treatment which they think works well against acne but he is either a wimp or the antibiotics have lowered his pain threshold and he almost jumped off the table he couldn’t handle it. I have never tried this treatment but it is light therapy. Blue light gets rid of bacteria, red light is healing. Being as bacteria sits especially at the base of the hair follicle in acne people this should work well as a treatment.

Continuous cleaning and exfoliation of the pores seem to make the most difference. Alex tells me that if he cleans his face 3 times a day at least his skin gets really good but if he is not concentrating on it and only cleans it once or twice a day it starts to look and get much worse. He ended up doing a treatment that is a blue light inside a glass flat-tube thing called high frequency…..which doesn’t seem to hurt and dries up the acne as you watch…I had them try it on me on a wee spot I have on my chin and it didn’t hurt me at all and she zapped it with the blue lightning…..today my spot has almost disappeared.