By the time a woman reaches her early teens, she can usually tell when it is coming. It takes only a few times of completing the cycle to be able to learn how your body reacts and responds to that infamous monthly visitor, the period or menstrual cycle. Besides the bloating, cramping, mood swings, and crabbiness, many women suffer from acne before menstrual period.

While acne is a normal problem for nearly all teens, acne before menstrual period can increase the occurrence of acne for teenage girls. In addition, this problem often follows these girls into womanhood, causing pimples even for women in their 30's!

There are many different treatments that will help with this problem. Some work better than others and some can be combined to dramatically decrease the amount of appearing acne before menstrual period. These can include medications, lotions, facial scrubs, and even a special acne diet.

Many common acne treatments are prescription based only. These medications comprise daily oral treatments or lotions which are applied to the skin. There are also many over the counter products available, including many body and facial scrubs which cleanse the pores of the skin and kill bacteria to help stop the spread of acne.

Lotion type medications are often too expensive to be used for acne before menstrual period because such acne occurs on so many parts of the body (including the face, neck, back, chests and shoulders). Additionally, many women worry about the side effects of oral acne medicines, which causes many to turn to an anti-acne diet.

This kind of diet will help you to avoid foods that contain hormones associated with acne, as well as other types of acne causing food. Sugar, for example, has been shown to have the potential to greatly increase instances and severity of acne.

In addition, the hormones in milk can also lead to an increase in acne production. In fact, any food with hormones in it (these include milk, and most animal products as farmers use hormones to boost their production) can cause an acne increase. Lastly, adding fish to your diet can help decrease your acne. Most fish has very important omega-3 oils that make your skin healthier.