How To Know If Your Acne Treatment Is Working
3-minute read
Have you tried everything for your acne without results and have no idea what to do next?
You're not alone. In my experience, most acne methods are missing one or two pieces of the acne puzzle, preventing success.
Here's my tried-and-true method to tell if something is going to work - or not - and will save you months, if not years, of breakouts!
How to Know If Your Acne Treatment Is Working
1. The 12-Week Timeline:
Most people don't realize that acne takes 30 to 90 days to show up on the surface of your skin, once formed. This means that the acne you see today wasn't formed yesterday, or even last week. It was from something that happened 1-3 months ago!
Because I've seen this thousands of times, I always stick to the 12-week timeframe before expecting results.
I've seen skin completely clear up in 6 weeks, and I've seen people continue to break out into the 12th week. In very rare cases (less than 2%), there's a hidden underlying cause like a medication or food sneaking in that will delay results longer than 12 weeks, but these cases can always be traced to a cause.
2. Keep Track With Photos
The best way to see real changes in your skin is with progress photos! It's common to have someone who started with a full face of acne have 1 or 2 pimples left and say they haven't noticed any change.
Acne affects us emotionally and trains us to focus on our flaws, not our progress. With pictures, you can get a true comparison, and most people are stunned to look back and see where they started! I see a lot of tears at this point
3. Pay Attention to Texture and Inflammation:
Since acne takes 30-90 days to get to the surface of your skin, set yourself up for success by planning on ignoring any “new” pimples. Remind yourself these are actually old pimples.
Where I focus instead is on texture and inflammation. Since acne comes from below, if your skin's texture improves (less bumps, smoother) that's always a good sign. You'll notice an improvement in texture before your acne fully goes away.
The other thing to look at closely is inflammation, or how “red” and irritated your overall complexion is. If you look closely at your progress photos, you'll notice that when you started, your skin was very red and irritated overall.
As you progress through the 12 weeks, that redness gets lighter and lighter and the skin surrounding your pimples improves by shrinking and lightning.
Both of these are strong indicators that your skin is making great progress while you still may be getting "new" pimples.
Always Stick to the 12-Week Timeframe to Test Your Treatment!
The 12-week timeframe is a tried and true method that will always let you know if your acne treatment is working or not. If your treatment goes beyond 12 weeks without making any significant progress, you may need to try something else.
