Curing Acne: Alternatives to Acne medication

If there is one thing that occupies the minds of the people who happen to suffer from acne, then it has to be the search of a treatment for the condition. You will tend to find these people scourging through their local libraries and on the Internet, for information about emerging trends in acne medication and other acne treatment options; in the hope that at least one of these will give them a solution to their troubling condition. And it is not hard to sympathize with their predicament and their almost desperate actions in their search for acne treatment, especially after having seen the effects the condition can have on an otherwise highly attractive person.

Of course, there are a lot of acne treatment drugs on sale nowadays. From benzyol peroxide to tretinoin, azelaic acid and accutane for the very bad cases of acne, the person looking for acne medication could be spoilt for choice quite easily. Cost wise, these medications for acne vary greatly, from about $17 for Clindamycin (on the lower end of the range) to more than $140 for azelaic acid on the higher side; meaning that you are likely to quite easily ‘find an acne treatment for your budget’ if you decide to go the acne medication route.

The problem with going the medication route in search for a cure to acne is that the drugs used tend to come with some very off-putting side effects – hence the widely felt need to at least provide some alternative to these medications for those who feel that there should be a better way for treating acne. Thinkers in the medical and pseudo-medical community have not taken this challenge lightly; coming as they have, in the last few decades, with a number of treatments for acne beyond the medication, so that the person who finds the idea of using medication for the treatment of acne off-putting can have something to fall back on.

The alternatives to acne medication we are looking at include the likes of laser treatment, naturopathy and surgery; each with its own upside and downside.

Starting with laser treatment as an alternative to the use of acne medication in the treatment of acne, the upside to it is that it can be highly effective, and relatively side-effect free, since the only ‘substance’ really used in laser treatment is naturally occurring light (which is concentrated into beams that are then focused onto the afflicted areas). Cost-wise, we would be looking at hundreds of dollars on the lower side and thousands of dollars on the higher side: making it only an option for the person who has the ‘money to spend on their health.

Turning to naturopathy as an alternative to acne medication in the treatment of the condition, the upside here is that it is also a relatively side effect free treatment, much much cheaper than the laser treatment explored earlier, and quite effective (according to the people who have gotten to use it before). The downside to it, of course, is that it borders on the spiritual in its approach to combating acne, naturally leading to raised eyebrows among the skeptics. Naturopathy starts at fees as low as tens of dollars.

Finally turning to surgery as an alternative to use of acne medication in the treatment of the condition, it turns out that the upside here is that of immediacy of results, as well as the fact that surgery treats the problem at its very core. On the downside, surgery comes with even greater risks (in terms of side effects) than the acne medication itself, making it only suitable for treating very severe cases of acne. It is a painful treatment, and not a cheap one either, often coming at the cost of hundred or thousands of dollars.