Posts (page 2)

There is something about the night that makes us neurotic.  We look in the mirror and see something that we don't like on our face.  Or we are sitting there watching television and feel something that was not there before. Oh my,  a blemish!  We instinctively start squeeze it or dig at it like a puppy un-burying a bone. The braver amongst us will use tools in an effort to dig out the offending agent.  We erroneously think that we will be healed by morning.  Sound familiar to your youth? Psychologically acne is embarrassing. Physiologically, pretend that acne are little water balloons under the skin.  When squeezed they will go the path of least resistance.  That could be outwards as the body would like, or explode inwards if it is a cyst. If you have a tendancy toward neurotic, you will pick the lesion as if you are shoveling it out of the ground.  That is a problem because instead of popping out the small opening of the balloon, you have torn a hole into the sides of it.  That will leave a mark.

 A blemish at its origin is a plugged pore.  A pore is the opening to the oil gland. The blockage results in a pooling of oil that is fertile food for certain bacteria.  The bacteria start to consume the oil and in retaliation the bodies white blood cells are sent to the area to consume and fight the bacteria.  As they consume the bacteria, the white blood cells will sequester the gland with an inflammatory wall to prevent it from spreading throughout the body.  The consumed bacterial byproducts become what we call pus or more medically, purulence. The goal of the body is either to totally consume and digest the offending bacteria or to push the purulence outwards to eject it from the body. If a gland is plugged without bacterial invovement it is called a blackhead or comedome.  If bacteria become involved superficially it is called a whitehead.  Deeper involvement results in small nodules deeper in the skin called cysts. This last category is the most challenging.

So what causes the pore to become plugged?  It usually is NOT dirt.  It can be the products we use on our face.  Dimethicones an ingredient that provides silkiness qualities to a product can be a common offender. Hairspray is another due to the cyanacrylate. Yes, that is also crazy glue.  Most cases however are due to hormones.  Testosterone is the biggest offender.  That is why teenage boys are the most afflicted during adolescence.  Progesterone is also a culprit. Pro means for, gestation means pregnancy.  This hormone makes glands and babies grow. It cycles throughout the female month, so be aware of when you are breaking out, because this type of acne has special treatments.  Under stressful states progesterone is changed into testosterone. Double whammy.   Premenstrual states have additional problems.  The female body will retain fluid in preparation for losing fluid during menses. The skin being the largest organ pulls its weight by storing the fluid.  Since the pore is simply a hole in the skin, it is forced closed by the surrounding water pressure.  Anyone take hot showers?  A similar phenomenon happens when your skin turns red.  That means that the blood is rushing from the blood stream to the skin. The old wives tale of hot water opening your pores is related to the feeling of laxity and tightness that hot and cold water provide rather than a microscopic analysis of the pore.  Okay,  what can we do about  it?   More on that tomorrow.

making your skin more beautiful

We often judge the success and failures of cosmetic surgical procedures based upon the appearance of celebrities.  It seems natural because they have money, time and expense to be able to afford the best.  But do they really have the judgment?  Movie stars are used to being catered to.  They request , then people around them scurry to get it done.  They rarely get an honest opinion.  I call it Michael Jackson syndrome.  Everyone around them agrees with them.  There are no boundaries and they get lost. They typically can afford the best,  which to a cosmetically naive mind would be the most expensive.  Most expensive is usually surgery.  Surgery is guaranteed to make you look different,  not always better. Best Doctor's?  There is no list,  Lists derived from magazines are based upon which Doctor's are advertising with them.  The best Doctor is the one who understands you and has the correct credentials.  This is no place for "he is arrogant but the best." Perhaps if I were having heart surgery, I could use that logic.  However, cosmetic enhancement is about making you happy in the context of maintaining normality. Being a relatively new field,  many doctors have only  a few years experience in injecting Botox and Fillers.  This is because these materials have recently been introduced only in the last few years.    A referral from a happy patient is a good start.  Preferably one who has had the same procedure that you are looking into.

Many people seek surgical results because they are not happy with the longevity of Botox and fillers.  This is another misconception. After your face-lift, you will still need Botox and filler. The face-lift will last 5-10 years.  Sometimes adjustments need to be made right away.  The ordeal is so taxing that many people will refuse the maintenance involved with it. Personally, I am not a proponent of surgical enhancement of the face.  I do not think it addresses the underlying problem of aging which is loss of volume of both skin and fat. Draping the skin tighter over the cheekbone results in a skeletization of the appearance.  And in a man, it feminizes his appearance.  Every day we hear about a new way to do a face-lift,  thread lifts, mini lifts, laser lifts.  They all have the same problems in that they will make you look different and in some cases can cause you harm.   There is no quick fix.  There is nothing that is biological that does not require maintenance.  Hair, nails, skin all require constant attention.

A filler is a substance injected into the skin to replace volume.  The modern fillers are made of materials that are seen as bio-identical by the body.  That is to say there is little to no chance of your body rejecting the material.  Injected correctly,  they will give the simulation of youth.  Some last a few months,  others can last 2 years.  The ideal filler will last around a year.  Increasing the longevity of fillers increases potential complications. What happens if it is done incorrectly?  Think Priscilla Presley who was allegedly done by a Brazilian Doctor purported to be the best.  He injected silicone into her face.  Silicone is permanent and considered to be a poor filler for that reason.   It has been used successfully in small dosages but has bee ostracized in the USA for multiple reasons.  Good judgment?  Not so much for her and not so much for the Doctor. Fortunately, this is an extremely rare scenario.  if you check your physicians credentials and understand what is being injected this can be avoided. Dermatologist are the most talented in this area,  Plastic surgeons sometimes are, but their expertise is more surgical.  Moreover, stick with FDA approved filling materials.  Consequently. life is change and your cosmetic needs change as you age.  Develop a relationship with your physician. Don't jump on the newest thing,  wait for it to be proven for several years.

making your skin more beautiful 

Botulinum toxin was initially discovered at the turn of the century as the cause of Botulism,  This is where a Clostridium bacteria is consumed in spoiled food and then multiplies to secrete a group of  multiple protein complex some of who's effects result in paralysis of surrounding muscle. It was further purified in the 1940's to be used as a biotoxin against Hitler's forces but was abandoned because of inadequate delivery systems.  It sat in a bottle for a years and eventually became further refined. We discovered there were at least 7 subtypes of Botulinum proteins.  The most studied subtype A,  became patented as Botox by the Allergan corporation. As a medication, it  first use was in the 1970's  for children whose eyes were going different directions; a condition called diplopia.  Botox was used to paralyze one of the ocular muscles so that children's eyes would both go the same direction until it could be surgically corrected.  This is important because as a child's brain begins to grow, it will chose one eye or the other and 'shut off' the non dominant eye, resulting in permanent blindness of the un-chosen eyeball.  These children were often too small for safe surgery so the Botox treatments allowed the child to grow until old enough for corrective surgery.

Now for the romantic part.  There was once an Ophthalmologist in Vancouver who was married to a Dermatologist.  He saw when his wife would inject these children with Botox, an interesting thing would happen; their wrinkles would go away.  Being a clever Dermatologist, he studied the muscles of facial expression and concluded that correct placement of Botox would result in a relaxing of wrinkles.  His first patient was his receptionist. After a successful result, he and his wife published it as a medical paper and the world has never been the same. Botox became FDA approved in 2002 for cosmetic use and since that time has become the number one cosmetic procedure in the world with 3,000,000 treatments administered last year. 

Now, don't let it's origins frighten you.  Poisons are only labeled such when they cause detriment and harm to an organism.  Used correctly, this toxin becomes a beautifying protein.   The nice things about it?  We have over 30 years of Human experience with the medication .  It is temporary, effects lasting 3-4 months. In the right hands, it is predictable. Recently, you may have heard some negative press about Botox  in the news.  When dissecting these stories, they are revealed to be from use of un-purified botulinum proteins, which are unstudied and unpredictable,  not Botox  botulinum type A.  There has never been a documented death from the use of Botox cosmetic. The most common side effects are headache, and bruising. Both of which are operator dependent, so go to someone experienced. The reason it is so popular?  With a few simple painless injections, you can lesson the appearance of your upper face by up to 10 years.  It is a great treatment for men who spend a lot of time thinking with their brows knit together only to come across as appearing mean or stern because of it.  It is a favorite treatment of my CEO patients and of course anyone wanting to look younger and more relaxed.

making your skin more beautiful

During my training I met a Dermatopathologist who was brilliant.  Dermatopathologists have all the education of a pathologist and a dermatologist together, they are very bright people. We were discussing the evolution of medicine and how only a few short years ago we discovered that certain cancers were caused by a virus.  This came about when noting that women with multiple sexual partners had an increased incidence of cervical cancer. Further investigation led to an association of human pappilloma virus  (HPV) and subsequently that viral irritation would often lead to cervical cancer.  Prior to that we had no idea that a virus could cause cancer and would argue multiple points against the possibility.  Today we have discovered that is indeed the case for several cancer's and it is influencing the course of medicine and how we approach cancer therapy.  He dubbed this a case of "We do not know what we do not know"  When I first heard this,  I had to think about it.  What he means is that as experts, we spend so much time focusing on what we do know,  that we become totally intolerant of what we don't know.  Once you adopt the attitude that there may be some bit of knowledge about a situation or topic that you have not yet considered, you automatically become more open minded in your attempt to seek the truth. This is why I feel so strongly about caffeine, plastics and organics.  I don't think marketeers and industries are intentionally trying to hurt us, I think they don't consider the possibility that they could be hurting us. The evidence has not piled up enough yet  for them to take notice. 

People once thought the world was flat because they could not conceive of otherwise. Think about situations or attitudes that you firmly felt to be true only a few short years ago, that today you feel 180 degrees different about because of new evidence that was not considered.  It behooves us as a society to keep an open mind because that is how we learn and grow. Another example is sunlight. Your lifelong attitudes about sun induced aging and cancers will dramatically change once it happens to you.  So how can you use all of this in your life on a personal level? Think about what you may not know  the next time you are absolutely positive about something. Use it as a kind of double check. Your decision will probably be the same, but some day it might not.

making your skin more beautiful

P.S .     BTW,  trust me on the sunscreen.

When I was in Mexico recently, I noticed they had those small 10 ounce bottles of Coke that we used to use in the early 70's.  They were made of glass. A tradition that should probably be re-instigated since the plastic in bottles tends to emit an estrogen like substance that is infesting our society. Don't believe me?  When I was in medical school in the 1986 we were taught that little girls would all start their periods within 6 months of the day that their mothers had their first menses. That is not true any more,  the environmental estrogen's in plastics and processing are causing precocious puberty, a medical term meaning that children are developing adolescence much too early. Mentally some children are not able to deal with their increased size and shapes.  My nephew is 12 and weighs 150 pounds.  He is not overweight and is quite athletic. I was 98 pounds when I was his age.  His problem is not estrogen, but testosterone that is being added the animals to increase their muscular yield.  That and his his need for super sized meals, which make him grow faster and need more super sized meals. You don't have to take my word for it.  Compare your children's size and date of adolescence to what you experienced when you were their age. This is the only generation that will ever be able to make this distinction because the chemicals were introduced during our watch and are probably here to stay.

The compounding factor is the super size concept.  Remember when a large soft drink was 16 ounces?  That is because 16 ounces used to fill you up in the 1970's. Then the scientist's figured out that if you used corn fructose syrup that you would never become filled up.  This is because there is a chemical "switch" in  the brain that tells you to stop drinking when you have had enough sugar; the switch is not triggered by corn fructose corn syrup.  Normal glucose will trigger this satiation point but corn fructose, just makes you thirstier.  Thus the increasing consumer demand for super sized beverages.   But is it really a beverage?  Is there anything in there that is possibly good for you?  Read the ingredients.  In life, if you do not understand what it is being consumed, you might consider avoiding it.  Would you take a pill from the pharmacy with an unreadable label?  Why do you suppose that we do this with beverages?  Understandably, the addiction in this department is very high as well, with many statements of "how I need....."   However, this is an easy one to switch.  Drink water.  Add a lemon. Try tea. Use real sugar so that you will truly stop drinking when you are satiated.  The way I did it was one day, I decided all soda's are poisons.  Once you truly understand that poisons exist in disguised edible states, you will gladly avoid them.  But it is a challenging first step because the marketing hypnosis of these products is so pervasive in our society.

The answer,  eliminate plastic from your life and your childrens.  Invest in glass containers.  Eat organic free range meats.  Organic means that the soil has not been treated with chemicals for at least 7 years and no chemicals are added.  Free range means the animals get to graze in a real pasture rather than being trapped in a cage eating year old silo grains before harvest.  Graphic,  but that is how it really is.  Farming has become a tough business.  Avoid soda, instead explore herbal teas.  Avoiding these exogenous unnecessary hormones will only help to make your skin more beautiful.

During my training, I was fortunate enough to work with one of the co-creators of Retin-A.  He is a truly remarkable mind and was responsible for the use of benzoyl peroxide in acne and quite a few of the dermatological innovations of the past 50 years. I have tried to emulate many of his teachings in trying to figure out how his brain worked in the 2 years that I trained with him.  He always described himself as "a boy from Iowa," but that was to make you feel more comfortable around him.  One of his favorite sayings was, "every day is a school day."  What he meant by that was that no matter how mediocre your day may be, there is always something that can be learned from it.  To take it a level further, if you assume that every day is a school day, you prepare your mind to be receptive to learning every day.

The reason I mention this is that in daily blogging and reading blogs, I am learning. Stuff that I would not normally seek out.  Sales, Energy , Dating, Babysitting and Fashion trends.  I even thought I knew everything there was to know about travel, but no, there is more to learn.  Because like many of you, I am too closely involved with myself and have difficulty putting into perspective what is interesting to others, so it is time for some teamwork.  Since it seems that some of us in the group are encountering writers block.  On the next round of comments to other peoples posts, consider giving suggestions on topics that we would like to know more about that are in that bloggers area of expertise. This might make some of the early A.M. postings go a bit more smoothly.  After all,  we only have about 10  official school days left, lets make every one a school day!

making your skin more beautiful

This weekend I am at a destination wedding in Los Cabos, Mexico.  Not much of a vacationer at this point in my life due to needing to run a business that must still be running expenses whether I am there or not. Too much work to do.  Most of my  trips are continuing education related so this is interesting for me.  My cell phone does not work, but they do have internet access.

I am staying at the One and Only Palmilla.  It is located at the tip of the Mexican Baja peninsula where the ocean meets the desert.It looks like an oasis when you drive in.  This portion of the ocean is known as the Sea of Cortez. and feels very tropical . It is roughly on the same longitude as the lowermost point of Florida and has the humidity to prove it.  The customs of the property employ that of the Otomi people.  These were original American Indians that were nearly decimated by Spanish and English colonists.  Their clothing are all weaved by locals and resemble a loose linen fabric. The staff here have an intriguing Otomi way of greeting guests and each other.  They look you in the eye, place their right hand on their chest and sincerely smile at you.  The intent of the custom is to "Greet you with all of their heart."  Initially this is disturbing, because you do not feel like you deserve their kind greeting.  You feel a little funny giving it back at first because you do not feel the same genuine reciprocity and you are not sure if it is the correct custom to respond in like. Everyone here does it. The construction workers stop their work to greet you this way as you walk by.  So after being here a day, I started to do it back to them.  An interesting thing happens when you place your hand over your  heart and sincerely greet a stranger. Automatically you have compassion for them and a slight sense of rapport and calmness. 

The greeting we are accustomed to in the United States is that of shaking hands. A custom that was originally developed to ensure that there were no weapons being carried in our dominant hand when we met a stranger. How different would our society have turned out if instead of approaching each other with caution, we greeted each other with all of our hearts?

                    prospect----> customer---->client--->supporter----> advocate

We have all been advocates of something at some time or another  How did we get there? Chances are that the way we got there had something unique or emotional involved in it.  Chances are that another person given similar circumstances would become an advocate as well.  If you have ever had the opportunity to stay at a 5 star hotel, you could easily become an advocate of being pampered and satisfied.  But it is not all about customer service. You have to represent your product sincerely and it has to be legitimate. Creating an advocate also has to do with fulfilling more than your initial need.  It is that little extra humanity that you impart to your service or goods, that allows that person to bind to you, and you to them.  And one advocate is worth 100 supporters.

So think about it, How will you create a Raving Fan?

making your skin more beautiful

With summer just around the corner, I wanted to make your you had some guidelines for safer sun exposure.

1- Sunscreen: Try to apply daily sunscreen of at least an SPF of 15.  If you are going to be outside for more than an hour then kick it up to SPF30 or greater.  On the weekends I use Johnson and Johnson Water babies SPF45+

2- Try and avoid the most UV intense hours of the day: 10 am - 3 pm.

3- Waterproof sunscreen is not wipe proof.  Re-apply after drying off.

4- T-shirts have a SPF of 7 ( 4 if wet),  wear sunscreen underneath your teeshirts.

5- Wear sunglasses which filter both UVA & UVB rays.  This is where where cataracts come from.

6- Wide-brimmed hats offer more shade than baseball hats caps do. (protect your neck and ears)

7- Chemical Suntan lotion is toxic to babies less than 6 months of age. keep babies in the shade!

8-  Getting a “base tan” in a tanning bed does not protect you from real sunlight. The UV rays from tanning beds are often times worse than sunlight.

9-  Stay in the shade if you are eating outside,  you can still enjoy the day!

10- If you are out in direct sunlight,  make sure you are having a grand time otherwise get in the shade.  It is not free,  you will be paying for it with your youth.

making your skin more beautiful