Discover how inducing acute inflammation can heal your skin. However you wish to improve your skin or treat problems like acne, rosacea, pigmentation, sun damage, ageing or textural abnormality; by inducing acute inflammation the repair process can beginning.
Lets take a look at different types of inflammation
Acute inflammation can be caused by many factors from a disease process, bacterial infection to irritating chemicals and UV sun exposure, even your lifestyle and diet can affect your skin. Your body fights this inflammation and areas of skin can become red, hot and itchy. If unfortunately your body loses this battle the inflammation will become chronic, this type of inflammation is destructive to your body and more specifically your skin. Progression to chronic inflammation cayuses cellular dysfunction, alteration in your skin texture, true sensitivity, pigmentation changes, it does not respond well to treatment, healing and accelerates aging. Luckily Dr Hemming has been personally trained by a man determined to find a way to heal your skin.
Tackling chronic inflammation using acute inflammation to heal your skin
Dr Obagi has spent 40 years researching and developing ways to treat chronic skin inflammation. Initially with Nu Derm and now with ZO his treatments are at the forefront of skin science.
In traditional medical practice skin care does not address inflammation or skin health. It focuses on the superficial skin problem and not the issues lying underneath. Treating symptoms rather than the cause does not give the results patients are looking for. In order to treat chronic inflammation Dr Obagi uses products to stimulate acute inflammation.
Changing chronic skin sites into acutely inflamed areas triggers the body’s own healing mechanisms.
Some patients on the program responded with a violent and prolonged inflammatory phase when introduced to the ZO formulations. Others demonstrated minimal or no reaction to the same agents. As a result an anti irritant was added to the skin health restoration products. These help reduce violent skin response to your treatment.
Repair phase
Having induced acute inflammation in order to heal your skin problems we then need to ensure we prevent a recurrence back to the chronic inflammation cycle. By using the correct products in the proper concentration, frequency and amount Dr Hemming creates a 2-6week repair phase. During this time you may have symptoms of acute phase response including redness, dryness, irritation, peeling. This is all normal and should be expected in order to heal the deeper damage in your skin layers.
No matter what your final skin healing goal, you must go through the repair phase to ensure you heal your skin properly. Whether you are treating acne, rosacea, melasma, sun damage, ageing or textural abnormality the initial 2-6 weeks will be the most difficult for you. Following this you will see improvement in your skin as you transition into the improvement phase (at the 6-12 week point) and finally completion phase (12-18 weeks).
Stability phases
As your skin moves through the phases it will become more stable. Finally reaching the point where your skin concerns have been addressed. Further pulses of more intense treatment can be used to get you there including a 3 step peel, invisapeel or at home peel, if needed. As your skin improves and reaches your comfort point you can continue on a maintenance plan. All bleaching and blending HQ products should be stopped at 5 months to prevent resistance and rebound hyperpigmentation. Stabilisation can be achieved using antioxidants, DNA repair agents and anti irritant agents.
For more information about Obagi ZO skin health and consultations with Dr Anna Hemming contact us here