Day in and day out, you’ve been trying different skin care products and home remedies to clear your skin; you’ve changed your diet and you’re still not seeing results. Then, you find yourself at the dermatologist, who as helpful as they are (or unhelpful- trust me, I’ve seen both types), just prescribes medication for your acne. Most likely, you tried one of the 4 most common prescribed medications to clear your skin. At first, you see your acne clearing up, but once you go off the medication, it’s like Return of the Acne: Vengeance Series. And, I know, it is defeating when your acne keeps coming back.
I struggled with clearing up my acne for twenty years, starting at the age of 13, trying everything from Accutane to Steroids to Birth Control, but my acne would clear up and then keep coming back with a vengeance. Since then, I got my Masters in Nutrition and figured out the root causes of my acne. I am now acne-free (for 4 years!); I’m also an experienced Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, FNTP, and passionate about skin health and wellbeing. I also create helpful resources like my Acne Symptom Checklist to help you determine what your internal acne triggers are.
So, right now, I want to talk about the band-aid effect, what it is, what treatments fall into this category, and insight into which treatments to use or leave behind. I'll also talk about why your current strategy may be leaving you in the acne cycle. So let's just get right into it, and talk about the acne band-aid effect.
What Exactly Is the Acne Band-Aid Effect?
Now, this is just like what you would think. Essentially, the band-aid effect is just applying a temporary solution to a deeper issue. For example, if you or a loved one are fighting and you just keep suppressing it instead of bringing it up, that's just like putting a band-aid over it. In other words, conflict avoidance is only a temporary solution to the deeper issue which would require a difficult conversation to address the root cause.
The same band-aid effect COMMONLY happens inside of the acne space because so many of the treatments are really just covering up the issue.
The 4 Most Commonly Prescribed Medications That Keeps Your Acne Coming Back
I’m going to go through the four most commonly prescribed medications and talk about how each of them is really just a band-aid effect and what you should try instead, if these prescriptions aren’t working for you.
Birth control
Spironolactone
Antibiotics
Accutane
These are the 4 most common ones that I get asked about ALL THE TIME inside of my FREE Facebook group. I always have women coming into the group saying that they are on these drugs or that they were on these drugs, and these medications are doing one of the following:
just not working
only working temporarily
causing tons of other side effects (i.e., losing hair, significant changes in mood, weird rashes, etc.)
As you can see, all of these women aren’t seeing results with clearing their skin or experiencing acne that keeps coming back. And it’s absolutely discouraging! This is why I’m going to explain exactly why these medications aren’t working for your skin.
Birth Control to Clear Acne
Let's start with birth control. Time and time again, women come to me and they say, I went off birth control and my skin exploded. While they were on birth control, it worked, but then the acne came back.
Now, the reason birth control is a band-aid effect, causing acne to keep coming back, is because it's not actually balancing hormones. So, what exactly is it doing?
Basically, it is providing synthetic hormones. That means your hormones aren’t learning how to be in balance and balance themselves. Your hormones are just getting support. Once you take the birth control away, it’s like taking the crutch away, your hormones go right back to how they were before you started.
So, why would a dermatologist recommend birth control for acne? Let’s say you went to the dermatologist and she says that you have hormonal acne. Then, she prescribes birth control to balance out your hormones. Right now, your hormones are not in balance and that is why you are having some acne.
That’s when you go on birth control and the synthetic hormones come in. Not only is the birth control blocking signaling between your brain and ovaries (plus, a lot of other different things going on), but it's not actually balancing your hormones.
Later, when you decide to go off of it, you find that you still have acne. This is because the root issue, the imbalanced hormones, is still there. It's just “band-aiding” the hormones that are out of balance and not actually solving the problem.
Why Your Acne Keeps Coming Back With Spironolactone
Generally, Spironolactone is prescribed because you have excess androgen hormones, and Spironolactone reduces your androgen hormones. Why reduce androgen hormones? Well, androgen hormones can cause excess sebum production which can then cause clogging in the hair follicles or the pores.
This is why Spironolactone might be prescribed to get rid of your acne.
Spironolactone causes your body to create less sebum, therefore there is a less chance of your pores getting clogged with excess gunk and skin cells, and so you have less acne when you go off spiro. You can learn more about Spironolactone in this blog post HERE.
But, what happens after you go off spiro? Your androgen levels go back to normal because you didn't do anything to solve the root issue, which is excess androgen hormones.
And that's really why it’s just a band-aid effect. It only works while you're on it, and when you go back, it's only a matter of time until your body goes right back to the way it was because there's a different imbalance that needs to be addressed.
When trying to identify the root cause, there are a lot of things that could be causing excess androgen hormones, such as a hormonal imbalance, inflammation, or even the foods you’re eating.
On top of the band-aid effect, spiro can consequently dehydrate your body severely, mess with your mineral balance, and can have a lot of terrible side effects.
Using Oral or Topical Antibiotics to Get Rid of Acne
Antibiotics, either taken orally or topically, kills acne-causing bacteria, which sounds great, right? Well, in theory it is, but it is also killing good bacteria in your gut and on your skin microbiome. As a matter of fact, you need this good bacteria for everything to work properly.
Good bacteria in your gut helps:
keep inflammation at bay
support your immune system (which a large part of it resides in your gut)
digest and extract nutrients from your food
keep your intestinal tract healthy (so you don't have leaky gut and food sensitivities)
Without good bacteria, you will find yourself having gut issues, diarrhea, constipation, or bloating and digestive issues.
Another HUGE issue with antibiotics is that you can eventually become resistant to some of them. If you take so many different antibiotics for your acne, then you can become resistant to that strain or multiple strains. That means, in the future, antibiotics might not work for you if you're ever in a life-threatening situation or you need an antibiotic for something that is very threatening. It's hard to find a good antibiotic, unfortunately, when you actually need it.
So that is why antibiotics are actually doing more harm than good, so it might work temporarily, but just like the other medications, when you go off of it, your acne will come back. You could also have dysbiosis, a huge imbalance between good and bad gut bacteria, causing inflammation and acne.
Accutane for Clear Skin, Temporarily
Accutane actually slows down the production of sebum, and it also slows down the production of cells.
If you’re inside my FREE Facebook Group and watch my video series, I talk about the genetic component of acne. Usually the genetic variant that people with acne have is an over-proliferation of skin cells, meaning there's just more cells and they’re multiplying a lot faster than in people who don't get acne.
Due to over-proliferation, the only way to clear the cells is for them to be brought to the surface of the skin and to slop off.
When you have too many cells coming up to the surface of the skin, it's easy for your pores to get clogged, especially if there's excess sebum. On top of that, they also can become sticky. Again, this has a lot to do with genetics and inflammation.
Taking accutane slows down:
sebum production
excess cell growth (even if you're genetically predisposed)
So when you're on accutane, it's wonderful because sebum production and excess cell growth slows down and your skin clears. For most women, including myself, it will stay clear for quite a while after. I was on accutane two times, and it stayed clear for about a year after I was on it both times. However, my acne came back worse than it was before.
So when you take the accutane away, over time, your body is going to ramp up the production of skin cells and sebum again. Eventually, it's going to go right back to producing excess sebum and cell growth. Yup, band-aid effect, again. Just put it right on there.
Get Off the Acne Roller Coaster Ride
I like to call this the acne roller coaster, where you try something and it works. Then you're really excited and you think you're on the right path, but then the acne comes back and that just keeps happening over and over and over again.
Look out for my next blog post which goes into 3 questions to ask yourself to determine if you need to pivot your strategy that you are currently using to try to heal your acne.
In the meantime, go through my Acne Symptom Checklist (you can also fill out the form below) to help you determine what your internal acne triggers are. I’m cheering you on, and please know that YOU ARE NOT ALONE in your skin journey. Join our FREE Facebook Group. for expert advice and encouragement from other amazing women like yourself.
P.S. If you love what you read about skin care for acne, and want to know my EXACT routine and all the products I recommend for every skin type, I invite you to check out my Acne Skin Care Guides. They can make all the difference in the health of your skin. Learn more here!
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