People often come in to my office and say, “Dr. Candrice, I have these awful dark spots, how can I take care of them?” Patients are under the impression that dark spots just occur on their own. In reality, dark spots are actually often caused by acne! Yes, the underlying cause of dark spots may really be acne. In the first step of my How to Reduce Dark Spots blog post I explained that you have to treat the underlying cause. Therefore, acne and hyperpigmentation are the real bandits here. So, how do you treat acne and hyperpigmentation? I thought you’d never ask! Let’s dive in.

I discussed how acne is formed in my Plan a Pimple-Free Prom blog post, but let’s go over it quickly here. Acne is formed when a pore in your skin is clogged.  This clog originates from dead skin cells. Our faces naturally shed dead skin from the surface of our skin every day.  Our bodies also produce something called sebum. Sebum is an oil that keeps our skin from drying out. Sebum is very important for the health of our skin, but sometimes our body makes too much of it. When we have too much sebum, the dead skin cells on our face stick together and are unable to shed properly, this is how they begin to clog the pores. We also have natural bacteria to combat. Hyperpigmentation occurs when melanin, the thing that gives our skin color, is overproduced in certain patches or spots in our skin. There are different types of hyperpigmentation, but the type related most often to acne is post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation. This type of hyperpigmentation happens when the skin suffers trauma or injury and then has to heal itself. How does this relate to acne? When we try to pop pimples or otherwise irritate the skin on our face, we are causing a type of “trauma” or “injury” to the skin, this creates inflammation, which leads to hyperpigmentation.

Treating the acne that is likely causing the hyperpigmentation allows us to stop the problem at the root. However, even after treatment of the acne we may see hyperpigmentation remaining from the battle, so to speak. This is where things such as the incredible importance of using SPF on your face come into play. Sun can darken your dark spots as it activates the melanin in your skin. To read more on how to reduce dark spots in general, check out my blog post on the subject!

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