What is Adderall?
Have you ever heard of or taken Adderall before? It’s a combination drug that contains a mix of dextroamphetamine and amphetamine.
It stimulates a part of your brain by altering the number of natural substances in your brain like dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. These are hormones that affect how you’re feeling. But what exactly is it used for?
How does Adderall work?
Adderall is typically used for the treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, more commonly known as ADHD. It stimulates the brain to help improve focus, attentiveness, and self-control. And it also helps organize your thoughts and listening skills.
In other cases, Adderall is also used to treat narcolepsy, a sleeping disorder, by keeping you awake during the day so that you can sleep during the night.
Adderall and Acne
Can Adderall intake lead to acne breakouts? Although Adderall helps with your brain activity, it has many side effects whether you use it properly or not, and there are a lot of different harmful side effects including skin problems.
The way skin problems arise is through the stimulation caused by Adderall constricts blood vessels. This results in a blood pressure increase and less cleansing occurring in your body. Plus it makes your skin dry. But that’s not the whole picture.
Does Adderall cause acne?
There’s no solid evidence showing that Adderall is directly linked to increased acne formation. Although, one of the components of Adderall, amphetamine, and stress could possibly trigger or make acne worse. Stress is also one of the leading causes of acne breakouts.
But since Adderall is most commonly used by teens and young adults who are typically more acne-prone than other populations, it can be difficult to conclude for sure.
Most of the time, the direct effects of Adderall are what’s causing the breakouts to happen. It’s similar to how creatine could indirectly lead to acne.
Let’s look into it more.
Common Side Effects of Adderall
Some of the most common side effects of Adderall include loss of appetite, stomachache, dizziness, and nervousness. Although the incidence of this is relatively low, these could still occur.
- Diarrhea
- Dizziness
- Dry mouth
- Fever
- Headache
- Insomnia
- Loss of appetite
- Mood swings
- Nausea
-
Stomachache
One of the biggest side effects of taking Adderall is loss of appetite and when you don’t eat enough, this could lead to some degree of malnourishment. Since our body is highly reliant on nutrition and food, malnourishment can cause a plethora of other conditions including acne breakouts.
These symptoms can become a serious issue so if you are experiencing these, it’s best to go to your doctor.
Can Adderall cause skin problems?
Adderall can cause your skin to become red and irritated since it stimulates the chemicals in your system. When Adderall stimulates your brain, it also constricts your blood vessels which could result in increased blood pressure and reduced waste removal.
As a result, your skin becomes prone to infections, itchiness, and even acne breakouts.
A lot of these side effects can lead to unhealthy skin. If these symptoms affect you strongly, it’ll weaken your immune system and one of the signs of a weak immune system is unhealthy skin. It will start developing rashes or patches of eczema as a signal.
This could contribute greatly to acne breakouts since unhealthy skin is more likely to get irritated and inflamed easily. It can also turn out some severe skin rashes and cause itchiness.
Allergic reactions could also happen when you take Adderall. You’ll experience blisters, rashes, and hives. If this happens, you should definitely consult with your doctor.
How do I deal with acne?
Taking Adderall is, more often than not, unavoidable. So how do we treat acne caused by Adderall? Chances are, Adderall-induced acne is triggered in people who naturally have oily skin or acne-prone skin even before taking Adderall.
To deal with this, you can stick to your anti-acne skincare routine which should work as intended. If not, you might be missing a step. To add, you should also make sure to always remember to drink water and avoid highly sugary and fatty foods as these also affect your hormones and consequently increase sebum production.
So what should be part of an anti-acne skincare routine?
Anti-Acne Skincare Routine
A simple anti-acne skincare routine generally reduces acne or helps prevent it. The first step, naturally, is to wash your face with a facial cleanser followed by a toner to make sure your face is clean. Avoid using harsh scrubs and instead, go for gentle products.
Next, use an anti-acne serum to help reduce any effects acne has left on your skin like spots or scars. This will also reduce irritation and inflammation on your skin making it less prone to future acne breakouts.
I personally use the Mantisfy Anti-Acne and Repairing Serum as it fulfills its purpose of repairing acne-damaged skin as well as reducing redness. It also enhances your skin’s protection system making it less prone to acne and bacteria buildup and preventing further damage.
The Mantisfy Anti-Acne Serum makes use of high-quality ingredients: Salicornia and Edelweiss. Salicornia is great for keeping your skin hydrated all day long and reducing aging while Edelweiss fights bacteria and repairs your skin cells. This will leave your skin feeling smooth and healthy.
Finally, apply a non-comedogenic moisturizer so that it doesn’t block your pores but instead keeps your skin hydrated all day long and forms a protective barrier against foreign materials.
Stay hydrated
A lot of the side effects of Adderall can be reduced by simply drinking water. A simple yet quite effective solution since the human body relies a lot on water. Not only does this cleanse your body but it also helps your body maintain balance and get rid of waste.
Consult with your doctor
Of course, Adderall is still a drug and the best way to go about this is to consult with your doctor to make sure you aren’t doing anything wrong or that what’s happening is simply an unfortunate side effect. Keeping track of when precisely the breakouts and the Adderall intake happened will also help you and your doctor figure this out.
All in All
So does Adderall cause acne? Adderall can only ever indirectly cause acne as far as studies suggest. So to deal with acne indirectly caused by Adderall, we should deal with its side effects and how they affect our skin. But that actually doesn’t differ that much from how we normally should deal with acne.
Always remember, at the end of the day, Adderall is still a drug prescribed by your doctor so any concerns you may have regarding or related to this should be consulted with your doctor and not remedied at home.