I see a lot of patients with acne in my practice. I must say we have a high rate of success in clearing acne. I believe it’s mostly due to my interest in acne and my individualized approach. I also try to spend a good deal of time with these patients discussing every aspect of their treatment. In addition, we discuss the importance of diet. There was a study sent to me from Italy that looks at over 200 young people with acne, which I found very interesting. Those who consumed the lowest quantity of fruits, vegetables and fish were more prone to getting acne. This further confirms what I’ve been saying all along.
A study published in JAMA showed that 4 chemicals in sunscreens were found in the blood after a single use. These were avobenzone, oxybenzone, octocrylene and ecamsule. What does that mean for you? Should you stop using sunscreen altogether? Absolutely not! Skin cancer is on the rise and it’s very important to protect your skin from ultraviolet light. If you are worried just choose a physical sunscreen with zinc oxide or titanium dioxide. These are totally safe and do not get absorbed into the bloodstream.
If you have deep lines between your eyebrows, sometimes called the elevens, and you’ve had Botox injections and you still have a hint of a line or even a deep line what can you do about it? In my office I first inject Botox and see how much of an effect it will have. I have my patient return 10 days to two weeks later for the full effect. Then if there is still a line and the patient would prefer further correction I take a very fine line filler and inject the line with hyaluronic acid. This usually fills the entire line. So it does require two procedures and an added expense but that’s what happens when the lines are deeper. At least there is a solution!
In the last few years, I started to notice that younger and younger people were asking me for Botox. The reason is that many people don’t want to see the lines appear on their face in the first place. So imagine you have a smooth forehead with no wrinkles or an unfurrowed brow. You just want to keep it this way. So you can have what’s called preventative Botox. Some people in their 20s have Botox injected in the frown, the forehead, or even the crows feet. They never develop wrinkles at all. They have perfectly smooth skin and I inject the muscles so that they can’t frown or wrinkle their forehead or squint their eyes. The Botox relaxes the muscles and the skin overlying it is smoothed out so wrinkles never form. For other young individuals they have very dynamic muscles with deep lines forming early so they may need Botox early and it’s not preventative it’s more of a necessity. So if you are young it’s certainly something to think about.