Home Remedies for Acne Series — Does Yaz Help Reduce Acne?

I know I know birth con­trol pills are not sup­posed to be about stuff other than birth con­trol, but since Yaz started adver­tis­ing itself as a treat­ment for Acne, every­one got curi­ous about whether it can actu­ally help reduce Acne. MyShimmer did a lit­tle research and found that it is a lit­tle more com­pli­cated than a yes-or-no question.

For its main func­tion Yaz (ethinyl estra­diol and drospirenone) is in fact a typ­i­cal hor­monal con­tra­cep­tive that has “24/4″ reg­i­men that has been FDA approved for the treat­ment of PMDD and guess what, acne! We are not going to go into the details of PMDD, but for those of you who aren’t famil­iar with it, it’s a short­hand of Premenstural Dysphoric Disorder, i.e. the gen­eral crap­pi­ness that a lot of us girls feel prior to our period every month. But let’s dive into Yaz’s claim that it helps with acne and explore whether it’s actu­ally the case.

Why does Yaz say It Helps Reduce Acne?

So what exactly in Yaz that is sup­posed to help reduce acne? To answer this ques­tion we have to tackle the good old ques­tion of what actu­ally causes acne in the first. Acne is often it’s about the hor­monal bal­ance of your body and your entire sys­tem. Over-activity of the seba­ceous (oil-producing) glands causes too much oil to be pro­duced on the skin, and when it is com­bined with a build-up of dead skin cells it starts clog­ging your pores, which in turns traps even more excess oil under­neath your skin. This sticky warm oily envion­ment is per­fect for bac­te­ria to mul­ti­ply and irri­tate your skin, and that’s when you get what we all hate the most — acne.

Alright, so what about Yaz that could help this sit­u­a­tion? The magic chem­i­cal is dropirenone. People with a higher level of andro­gen — a male hor­mone that pro­mote the devel­op­ment of mas­cu­line char­ac­ter­is­tics — tend to have larger seba­ceous glands and a high level of oil pro­duc­tion on their skin. What dropirenone does is that it coun­ter­acts the action of andro­gen in women, and helps reduce the effects of over-stimulated seba­ceous glands. As sim­ple as that.

So does Yaz REALLY reduce acne?

Fine, so after all that talk, Yaz should be the per­fect treat­ment for acne right? Well… nope. If you go ask a der­ma­tol­o­gist he/she will tell you there are dif­fer­ent types of acne, and just about a zil­lion pos­si­ble causes behind the for­ma­tion of acne. The causes of acne range from stress to weather to your diet to a lack of face scrub­bing, and not nec­es­sar­ily andro­gen. If the main cause of your acne is NOT andro­gen dis­or­der but other under­ly­ing causes, tak­ing Yaz will not make a dif­fer­ence, and at the same time you might to need to endure the adver­tised side effects of Yaz. So if you have in mind to start tak­ing Yaz as a treat­ment for your acne prob­lems, make a trip to your der­ma­tol­o­gist and get a pro­fes­sional med­ical consultation.

Well bot­tom line:

Does Yaz help reduce acne?
– Yes, and no. It entirely depends on what kind of acne that you have. Androgen acne can be reduced by the dropirenone in Yaz, but if you are suf­fer­ing from other kinds of acne, Yaz might not be the right solu­tion for you.

Should I take Yaz as an acne treat­ment?
– There are thou­sands of acne treat­ment options out there that don’t involve the same kind of side effects you might expe­ri­ence when you are on Yaz. Advertised side effects include decreased sex drive, headaches, weight gain, nau­sea and vom­it­ing, high blood pres­sure, high cholestorol, etc. Consult your der­ma­tol­o­gist on your acne prob­lem and whether you should try other types of treatment

Tell us your expe­ri­ence with Yaz!