Super Acne – What Is It and Where Did It Come From?
The latest risk to healthy skin is a problem that some are calling Super Acne. This is acne caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria. These forms of acne are difficult to treat and bode ill for public health reasons as well.
To begin, we need to understand how antibiotic resistance comes about in the first place. By now, most people have heard of methacillin resistant staph (MRSA). Super acne cam about in the same way.
Bacteria multiply rapidly and as they do mutations can develop. Rarely, this process will lead to the occurrence of a gene that conveys antibiotic resistance.
Groups of bacteria compete for the nutrients necessary to grow and multiply. The resistant bacterium is just one of millions. However, if an antibiotic kills all the bacteria sensitive to it, that competition is gone. This leaves the resistant bacteria to multiply rapidly and take over.
When penicillin came out it was effective against almost all bacteria. Now almost all bacteria are resistant to it. By the same mechanism, using antibiotics to treat acne has made the bacteria that cause acne resistant to antibiotics.
Physicians are aware of this disturbing trend and are getting away from using antibiotics for acne. In the past physicians frequently prescribed a daily low dose of an antibiotic, often tetracycline or erythromycin, as the mainstay of their acne treatment program. They’re much less likely to do that today.
Fortunately, there are a lot of good treatment programs today that don’t require antibiotics. A program that’s helped a lot of people is Acne Free In Three Days.
The three day part may be a bit of an exaggeration but the method does help people quickly. No antibiotic involve.
You can find a lot of good information on the prevention and treatment of acne and I suggest you look around. Best Acne Answers is a site I visit frequently. They have page on super acne you should see:The Rise Of Super Acne – Is Anyone Safe?
If at some point a physician does want to prescribe an antibiotic for acne talk about the reasons why very carefully. It may be the best move for you, but you don’t want to take a chance getting super acne if you don’t have to.
BTW – family physicians are more likely to prescribe an antibiotic for acne than dermatologists are. If your family doc recommends antibiotics, you may want to get a second opinion from a dermatologist first.
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