The New York University Langone Medical Center has discovered that, in order to treat acne, patients take antibiotics too long, as their doctors prescribe so.
- Doctors prescribe antibiotics too long also because patients are reluctant in taking something stronger
- Acne has no completely reliable treatment
Antibiotics are one of the preferred cures for cases of mild acne, but now the researchers that completed this new study are saying that doctors wait far too long before switching them from antibiotics to more powerful drugs.
This might not sound so bad in the beginning, but it actually is. Because prolonged intake of antibiotics increases the body’s resistance to them and effectively worsens your acne. To put this in numbers, the study has found that most of the patients were given antibiotics for a total of 11 months and even, a quarter of them, more than a year.
The researchers also say that doctors should be able to tell if a patient does not respond to antibiotics in the case of acne within a matter of weeks, definitely not months and surely not a year.
However, even the researchers admit there is one criteria that has to be taken into consideration when discussing why doctors prescribe antibiotics to acne riddled patients for so long. The next step in acne treatment, if antibiotics do not work, is a harder drug called isotretinoin. Usually, patients are reluctant to take this step and discuss with their physicians the possibility of remaining on antibiotics, even though they probably don’t work.
But these patients will eventually need isotretinoin anyway in the end, so the authors of the study are not arguing that it shouldn’t happen, just that it should happen sooner.
Acne is a long term skin disease. Its manifestation includes pimples, blackheads, whiteheads, oily skin and even scarring left behind after these afflictions. Although it happens mostly during puberty and ends once the person moves into adulthood, acne can leave important psychological damages, such as low-self-esteem, depression for not looking the way society dictates you should look or even, in the worst cases, suicide.
Acne often attracts bullying from peers of the people suffering from it. The actual cause of acne is not completely known. Genetics are believed to responsible for 80 per cent of the cases. However, an important part is also played by diet, hygiene and even cigarette smoking.
Acne is not completely treatable. Usually, treatments involve antibiotics and retinoids, as far as pills go and certain birth control pills may be taken by women to alleviate acne.
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