Many people struggle with acne their whole lives. Acne is not only embarrassing and unattractive, but it can also cause the person a lot of discomfort and pain. Luckily, there are some things that you can do to help manage your acne. Here are a couple tips.

1. Use Steroid Creams and Ice To Manage Swelling and Redness

Many times a side effect of acne is inflammation of the skin. This is because when you have an irritation on your skin, such as pimples, your body triggers the immune system. This brings extra blood flow to the area in attempts to heal the problem. However, with this extra blood flow can be inflammation, redness, and swelling. It can also become very painful. There are a couple things you can do to manage these symptoms. The first is to use a hydrocortisone cream, which is a steroid cream. This will help to reduce the inflammation, redness, and swelling. In addition, you can put ice on the area. This will not only provide relief for the pain and burning sensation you might feel around the area, but it can help to reduce the symptoms as well.

2. Avoid Wearing Makeup When Possible

When you have acne you might be tempted to wear makeup to cover it up. Although this is fine in moderate amounts, you should be sure that you are giving your skin plenty of time to breathe. Many foundations clog the pores which can only make the acne worse. Instead, you should give your skin breaks where you wear no makeup.

Also during this time you can use steam to open up the pores to help them drain. This can be done by taking a hot shower with the door closed, or boiling some water and then draping a towel over your head and the pot of water to trap the steam.

3. Change Your Diet

If you have a reoccurring problem with acne you might consider changing your diet. In some cases people get acne because of a food allergy. They might be allergic to a certain food like dairy and until they give up that food group the acne will be unmanageable. Consider doing an elimination diet where you take out certain foods for a couple weeks and see if it helps your acne to clear up.

These are just a couple suggestions of things you can do to manage your acne. If you are still having problems, see an acne treatment specialist about more involved treatments.