Natural Acne Treatment

Skin Therapy, Diet and Naturopath for Acne Treatment

At Pearl, we provide skin therapy for acne treatment, combined with diet, naturopathy and gut healing to settle your skin. We believe it is best to use natural methods if possible. We say if possible because sometimes referral to a Dermatologist is required to soothe your skin. However, fixing the underlying causes of acne is our main priority. Most people find our acne treatment plans work. The aim is to resolve any inflammation, clear obstruction, heal your skin barrier and restore a balanced skin microbiome. Antibiotics cause resistance and upset your gut bacteria; oral vitamin A should not be the first port of call. If you have severe cystic acne, this may be an option, but for many people, an anti-acne diet, skincare and combinations of therapies effectively clear your skin.

Acne therapies: extraction facials, chemical peels, LED light, BBL, microdermabrasion.

Skincare: products to settle inflammation, clear obstruction and slow oil flow.

Effective Acne Treatment can involve a combination of approaches:

First, adjusting diet by eliminating foods that cause acne and adding foods that heal your gut and impact the pathways that cause acne.
We can refer you to a Dermatologist if necessary for treatment resistance or severe cystic acne.

Please book online or call 07 3350577 for a free consultation with our therapist.

*Before and after, gut-healing protocol plus LED and skincare results are individual.

Before and after acne treatment with LED and skincare.

*After 8 LED + Vitamin A Cream – results are individual

Skin Therapies to Settle Pimples

LED Light Therapy for Acne

LED light therapy is incredibly effective for reducing inflammation and allowing your skin to repair. People think – ‘oh, it is just light’ and do not appreciate that LED therapy focuses on delivering light of a specific wavelength and dosage shown to bring about physiologic changes. The first LED light for acne was blue light therapy; however, red, infrared and yellow wavelengths mainly replaced blue light. It is the quickest way to impact and settle pimples.

We recommend LED light treatment twice per week for 8-12 treatments. These cost very little – $66 per treatment or $50 in our packages. Other therapies used for settling pimples are Kleresca and BBL or IPL. Kleresca is an LED light therapy augmented with a gel. However, this is expensive; from our experience, stand-alone LED light therapy is as effective.

Chemical Peels for Acne

Chemical Peels are another beneficial (and inexpensive) therapy for settling pimples. But, again, there are many options, and depending on other factors, we might recommend vitamin A, 2 %, Jessner or a combination peel.

Vitamin A peel
Jessner Peels
Combination salicylic acid and AHA

Acne Extraction Facials

Extraction Facials: Correctly performed extractions physically unblock your pores to allow pimples to settle. Extractions combined with a peel and LED light therapy provide a non-medical treatment that will eliminate pimples, blackheads, and whiteheads—only $11o for a skin analysis and extraction facial.

Physical treatments are the best approach if pore obstruction is a significant component. We pride ourselves on our extraction facials. Extraction facials are best for blackhead removal or milia extraction.

Acne Treatments

Skin Care & Acne Creams

Skincare principles for acne are settling inflammation, restoring the skin barrier and microbiome, and addressing pimple formation’s underlying cause.

Topical retinoids (Vitamin A) remain the mainstay of clearing your skin. The action is primarily through addressing the underlying causes. Retinoids decrease cell turnover and clear obstruction, stabilise oil production and assist in healing existing pimples.
Niacinamide, or Vitamin B, is a potent anti-inflammatory that repairs the skin barrier and stabilises the skin microbiome. Niacinamide is well tolerated because of its anti-inflammatory action.
Salicylic acid and exfoliants assist in clearing pore obstruction.
Benzoyl peroxide: Topically, the most commonly prescribed acne cream is benzoyl peroxide. This can come as a cleanser, gel or spot treatment cream. However, we do not recommend benzoyl peroxide for acne as it removes good bacteria.

Acne Diet - Anti-inflammatory Mediterranean Diet

Eliminate foods that cause breakouts:

eliminate refined sugar and sugary products from the diet (soft drinks, cakes, biscuits and sweets)
eliminate processed foods and high GI carbohydrates.
eliminate dairy from the diet
minimise meat protein

Increase foods that promote a healthy gut microbiome and metabolism

increase fibre in your diet
increase plant-based proteins
increase probiotics & fermented foods

Supplements Which Help Settle Pimples:

Fish Oil to settle acne – or other sources of omega 3’s (Algal oil, chia seeds, flax seeds). The ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 in your diet affects skin health, gut health, sebum, and inflammation. We provide a test that analyses the balance of dietary fat you consume: The Balance Test report shows the fat content in your cells – the good and not so good and provides advice for intervention if you are out of balance.

Other supplements which assist in settling acne by decreasing inflammation and improving your immune function:

Zinc
vitamin D
Sulforaphane

Lifestyle Factors to Settle Pimples

Reduce stressors or take up stress-relieving activities
Drink 2L of water daily
Skin optimising make-up
Remove make-up before bed
Do not pick

Naturopath for Acne Treatment

Our naturopath specialises in gut healing to settle acne. Courtney focuses on diet and resolving inflammation to stop the drivers of pimple formation. The role of diet and western diet in causing acne is well understood. In comparison, the gut microbiome and dysbiosis’s role is partially understood. Our Naturopath specialises in settling inflammatory skin conditions.

Dermatologist Acne Treatment

Sometimes acne medication is unavoidable, and we can provide a referral to a dermatologist if necessary. The primary approach of Dermatologists in treating acne is the prescription of Accutane. Accutane or Roaccutane (a systemic retinoid ) should be reserved only for the most resistant cystic acne because of the many known side effects. Because of the many known side effects

Book Online or Call for a Free Assessment with our Therapist at 3350 5447

Before and after acne treatment with LED and BBL

*After 4 LED + 1 BBL – results are individual

What Causes Acne?

Acne is an inflammatory skin condition caused by the western diet and its impact on metabolic pathways and the skin microbiome. It appears at puberty but increasingly extends into the mid-’30s in men and women. It is a metabolic disease caused by the western diet, as it does not occur in populations outside this dietary habit.

Acne affects the hair follicles and pores in the skin. Under the skin’s surface, these connect to oil glands that produce sebum. Acne’s primary cause is increased turnover of skin cells and blockage of the pores, increased oil production, and bacteria overgrowth.

Increased cell turnover and accumulation of exfoliated cells lead to obstruction of the hair/oil follicle. In addition, high sebum production builds up in the obstructed follicle to form a plug or comedones (blackheads, whiteheads).
This obstructed oil-rich follicle is the perfect environment for the Cutibacterium acnes (C. acnes)bacteria to overgrow, creating inflamed papules or pustules (pimples).
As the inflamed contents of the now obstructed hair/oil follicle cannot escape, painful nodules can form deep in the skin: nodular acne.
Or result in the destruction of the follicle with the release of inflamed contents into the dermis.
With further destruction, inflamed, tender cysts with slow healing with scarring, the result; is cystic acne.

Cutibacterium acnes the bacteria are formally known as Propionibacterium acnes – even bacteria can change their name!

Acne results in dysbiosis in the skin microbiome. However, the driving cause is not the bacteria but changes to the skin, which allows the bacteria to overgrow. The skin environment that allows this to happen is the overstimulation of metabolic pathways (mTORC1). How the skin dysbiosis develops – and results in the destructive elements.

C. acnes bacteria live abundantly on healthy skin, principally deep within the hair/oil follicles and the surface. Its preferred source of energy is obtained from oil and cell debris. In return, it produces by-products that may maintain the skin’s acid surface and protect it from harmful bacteria. However, when the hair/oil follicle becomes blocked and oil production increases, the C. acnes proliferates, and different strains of the C acnes become more dominant. This imbalance or dysbiosis is believed to drive the formation of pimples, cysts and nodules. In addition, the increased concentration of by-products produced by the ordinarily helpful skin microbe creates a toxic environment that contributes to cystic acne’s more destructive elements – inflammation, destruction, and scarring.

How does diet affect the skin changes that cultivate C. acnes dysbiosis?

A western diet is high in low GI carbohydrates (sugar, refined and processed grains), dairy and animal protein. The high sugar load promotes insulin and insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), which stimulates the mTORC1 pathway (mTORC1 determines cell proliferation and growth). Usually, at puberty, the mTORC1 is activated as it is, after all, a time of change. However, regular mTORC1 activity is sent into overdrive with an excessively sugar-loaded diet.

MTORC1 increases cell turnover in the hair/ oil follicle (results in blockage) and increases oil production, starting comedo formation. The mTORC1 also causes early inflammation (accumulation of T immune cells and cytokines) even before overgrowth by C. acnes. That’s right; inflammation occurs even before dysbiosis and overgrowth. (Melnik, 2015; Agamia et al., 2016; Zaenglein et al., 2016). So, of course, the blocked, obstructed hair/oil follicle is the perfect feeding and breeding ground for C. acnes overgrowth and dysbiosis.

C. acne is a normal bacteria of your skin; therefore, acne should not be considered an infection.

The Western diet underlies acne formation and explains why acne increasingly persists for years. Though not physically harmful, it has a severe psychosocial impact, causing low self-esteem, depression and social withdrawal. The resulting stress has a further negative impact back on both the gut and skin. Stress is a well know precipitant of breakouts in its own right (gut-brain-skin axis).