Acne Chinese Medicine

Chinese style acne medicine is a very different way of looking at how to heal your acne.

Chinese acne medicine comes from the general school of philosophy the Chinese have about medicine.  Chinese medicine focuses on how the internal affects the external.  So when a Chinese doctor sees a truly severe case of acne, his reaction is not to give you something to put on the acne to treat the skin, but to first diagnose the two internal problems that are resulting in the external acne, and treating the internal causes to ensure that your body restores balance, and the side effect will be that the acne is cured.

Acne is considered a symptom of internal "Heat" and "Damp," meaning there is excess heat and dampness that have to be cured.    By the Chinese understanding "Heat" is inflammation, hyperactivity, or over stimulation.  Hormonal activity causes heat.  Friction caused by "stagnation of blood", energy (qi ), or food causes "heat."  Therefore frustration and emotional friction also cause heat.  "Dampness" refers to the presence of excessive water or fluid in the body.  Swellings, cysts, pus, and mucous are all signs of dampness.  When the two meet, this causes some "Toxic blood" which then appears on the skin as acne, or another inflammatory skin disease.

The Chinese solution will usually consist of either herbal remedy, life-style change, diet change, acupuncture, or a combination of all of these.  A Chinese herbal treatment starts with a diagnosis and general health assessment by a doctor, followed by a prescribed Chinese herbal medication, health and dietary advice (which will be as a result of the general health assessment), and then any suggestions of additional treatment.  Treatments vary from three to twelve months, depending on the severity of the case. 

The other widely used solution is using acupuncture as a treatment for acne.  Despite being widely used, this treatment tends to not be noticed or talked about so much.  Like with any treatment, the success of acupuncture varies.  There have actually been many extensive studies done on the effectiveness of Chinese acupuncture as a solution for acne and, not surprisingly, most results seem to show that when acupuncture treatment is used, the best results occur when it is combined with something else. To summarize: using Chinese acupuncture to treat acne works best when you are using it in conjuncture with another type of acne treatment.           

These same studies have shown their highest success of acupuncture treatment to be in patients who also made lifestyle and diet changes, too.  The reasons for acupuncture treatment vary.  Some patients can't, or won't, take medications.  Some patients do not like the idea of surgery or laser treatment.  In many of these specific types of cases, the doctor will look to acupuncture as a viable alternative.  When they recommend this, they may have to send the patient to another doctor, or they may be licensed to perform this treatment themselves.  The plus side to this treatment is that there are not the side effects that come from medicine.  The negative side is that it can be expensive, some people fear needles, and there is no guarantee it will work, though most studies show at least a basic improvement.

The key to Chinese medicine is to treat the internal to restore the external.  There are many herbal remedies, not to mention the acupuncture, that may help with your acne.  There are cases of individuals who have found that after a full life of acne that could not be treated, the Chinese approach did, in fact, help them heal.  If nothing else, there have been enough successful results to ensure that Chinese acne treatments will be around for a long time to come.