When your skin is irritated, it’s trying to poke you to get your attention. The acne breakouts, redness, or flakiness that is flaring up is your skin trying to tell you that something is wrong. Irritants like UV exposure, allergens, and chemicals from skincare products are throwing things off.
As I discussed in a previous article, some inflammation is good for you. It means your body is primed and working as it should to fight the battle against foreign invaders. But if you don’t clear the problem, that inflammatory response could turn chronic and produce harmful hormones, enzymes, and free radicals that could cause damage to your skin tissue.
According to medical research, somewhere around 80% of all people around the globe will deal with different instances of skin inflammation at different points of time in their lives. Some may be more severe than others.
There are multiple routes you could take to treat these conditions. Some conventional, some not. Some medicinal, some botanical. How does DELTA-5 hold up in comparison?
How Your Skin Gets Inflamed
There are many different kinds of skin inflammatory conditions, symptoms, and root causes. Basically, your skin is showing inflammation any time it breaks out into itchy, red, or irritated areas, often accompanied by bumps, burning sensations, dryness, or other signs.
Redness, chapping, and stinging are just part of the message. In response to the insult of an allergen, sunburn, or a new retinoid, your skin turns red. That’s because blood comes rushing to the site carrying with it oxygen and immune cells meant to try to fix the problem by combatting the foreign invader or irritant.
When it’s done fighting, the swelling goes down, redness disappears, and the wound heals. But when it gets out of control, it causes your body all sorts of grievous problems.
Common Traditional Anti-Inflammatory Medications For Your Skin
There’s a world of traditional medications used to treat inflammation and inflammatory conditions. Some useful, some not so much. They all tend to have one thing in common: a list of potential side effects a mile long.
You have to ask yourself: “Could there be something better out there?”
- Anthralin is used to help reduce inflammation and treat psoriasis. Anthralin is not used very often, however, because it can be irritating and can stain the hair, skin, and fabric.
- Benzoyl peroxide is used to treat acne by reducing the amount of acne-causing bacteria and by causing the skin to peel. Users of benzoyl peroxide frequently suffer reactions such as peeling, itching, irritation, and reddened skin, especially at the start of treatment.
- Corticosteroids are used to treat skin conditions. Corticosteroids are helpful in treating skin conditions linked to autoimmune diseases, including vasculitis and inflammatory diseases like eczema. They work to soothe inflammation, though have a long list of side effects, including effects on the liver, blood pressure, and disorders like eye problems, osteoporosis, and diabetes.
- Salicylic acid is commonly used to treat acne, though it can be absorbed into the bloodstream and may cause an allergic reaction or contact dermatitis.
- Immunosuppressants like azathioprine and methotrexate can be used to treat conditions including severe cases of psoriasis and eczema. Immunosuppressants work by weakening the immune system to help your body accept a new organ (in the case of an organ transplant) or to prevent further damage to your joints. There is a long list of negative side effects, including nausea, hair loss, diarrhea, joint/muscle pain, liver damage, and more.
- Enzyme Inhibitors shut down an important enzyme to the immune system so that the inflammation system is interrupted.
- Retinoids are used to treat severe psoriasis by reducing skin cell growth. They can cause severe birth defects if used while pregnant or nursing.
A Better Alternative For Skin Inflammation
When treating inflammation of the skin, whether it be acne, dermatitis, or rosacea, it’s important to use an approach that will not irritate the skin further. DELTA-5 is a patented and effective, yet gentle approach to reducing inflammation.
The potent anti-inflammatory properties of sciadonic acid (SCA) from Mountain cypress seeds have been harnessed into this topical formulation. It is a powerfully effective fatty acid with a unique mechanism of action when incorporated into specific phospholipid pools. It displaces pro-inflammatory arachidonic acid (ARA), stopping the inflammatory cascade early in the biochemical process.
The incredible components of DELTA-5 have been shown to have numerous benefits to the skin on first application, including a profound effect on skin inflammation. It halts the inflammatory process in its tracks.
Most inflammatory conditions can be linked back to dietary decisions, allergies that are deemed to be genetic, or other predispositions that you may have had handed down to you from your ancestors.
There are tremendous amounts of foods that cause inflammation, and they should be avoided if you’re looking to give your skin some respite. The most common offenders are simple and complex carbohydrates and other heavily processed foods that are full of chemicals.
Watching what you eat may go far towards helping things settle down with your skin.
