PLASTIC SURGERY FOR SKIN: ACNE BE GONE
Skin doctors have special praise for Accutane, a derivative of vitamin A. Taken orally; it helps almost miraculously to dry up the great red sores of cystic acne. Dr. Alan Shalita, dermatology professor at the State University of New York Downstate Medical School in Brooklyn, says that, thanks to Accutane, “there is little reason for almost anybody to suffer with acne.”
However, doctors reserve Accutane only for the most serious cases. It can cause liver problems, among others. If a woman gets pregnant while taking it, a deformed fetus might result.
Paul Smith, 23, a minister in Little Rock, Arkansas, has had acne since the seventh grade. Red sores covered his face, back, neck, and chest down to his wrists and thighs.
“I felt that my body had played a very dirty trick on me,” he says.
Today, Rev. Smith keeps his skin 90 percent clear, thanks to a method devised by Dr. Kenneth L. Flandermeyer, associate clinical professor of dermatology at the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque. Dr. Flandermeyer has written about the method in Clear Skin (Little, Brown). Essentially, Dr. Flandermeyer asks patients to apply medicines that dry and peel the skin. Rev. Smith placed himself under Dr. Flandermeyer’s supervision in 1980 and saw improvement in weeks. When Accutane became available in 1982, he tried it and found that it worked.
But four of five persons between the ages of 12 and 23 with less terrible forms of acne can fight blackheads, pimples, and sores with nonprescription medicines.
Dr. Shalita notes that over-the-counter drugs often effectively reach into hair follicles to combat germs living there. He contends that germs cause blackheads by turning natural skin oils into fatty acids that block follicle openings. Not all acne responds well to self-treatment. About 25 percent of young Americans must seek a dermatologist’s help. “We still don’t know why some people get acne and others do not,” says Dr. Shalita.
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