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For women who have suffered with acne since their teens and they continue to suffer through adulthood. Middle age women take heart! Acne be gone! It will be your time to finally ditch the acne. But in the meantime what causes women to deal with acne for so many years?

Hormonal imbalances are mostly responsible for acne in adult women, and God knows us women have a lot of hormone imbalances! Premenstrual, menses, pregnancy, and child birth all affect our hormones. We spend half our life on the hormone rollercoaster. And with that rollercoaster ride comes the dreaded acne.

If that's not enough oestrogen and testosterone imbalances can easily occur from stress or medication. Something as simple as having an IUD device or taking Depo Provera, both methods of birth control, can lead to acne.

When the hormones are out of balance your body produces extra sebum which is any oily secretion of the skin. This clogs the pores and causes those dreaded zits.

Some women never have a pimple until they hit their thirties. Talk about a real shock. This usually occurs when they decide it's time to go off the pill. Birth control helps balance hormones and for many it keeps acne at bay. So it may not be that they were ever immune to acne just that it's been so long they never realized they would have pimples.

Some vitamins can also cause acne. Vitamin B supplements and Vitamin E creams are known to cause acne break outs. On the other hand taking zinc orally has shown positive effects to eliminate acne in studies.

There are other conditions that are often mistaken for acne. Conditions such as acne rosacea, keratosis, or perioral dermatitis are often confused as acne. If you are unsure what you are dealing with make an appointment to see your dermatologist.

There are three major reasons why adult women suffer from acne: the pill; antibiotics; and vitamin A.

Long term antibiotic use causes us to develop a yeast infection which lowers the body's immune system and defences which can result in acne.

Vitamin A treatments such as Retinol-A are double edge sword. Initially they can cause outbreaks, but over time they will effectively remove damaged layers of skin including acne scars, as well as get the skin to form collagen which give you younger looking skin.

Interesting by the time women reach their mid 40's they can almost be guaranteed to become acne free. It's believed that our female hormones have mellowed some by then, and we aren't on the hormone rollercoaster anymore. This is a welcome change for many women!

If you're younger you'll just have to find an acne medicine that works and wait for your mid 40s to arrive. See there's something good about being over 40.

The main thing is not to let your acne control your life. There are plenty of treatment options to try and just persist until you find the one that works!