Blog - SEED Chinese Medicine - Dr Bianca Mancuso Skin Health Acupuncturist

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HOW LONG DOES ZILCH TAKE TO WORK? It varies for everyone, but changes can usually be seen within the first 1-2 weeks. Local redness and inflammation decreases, and new breakouts are less frequent. Much clearer skin is usually seen within 6-8 weeks. Patients who keep a skin diary before commencing Zilch are the ones who can clearly see the changes in their notes. Keeping a skin diary is easy, and recommended if you’re about to start acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine for your acne. All you need to do is mark the dates of new pimples, their location, and a note on how they change over time.

TIPS TO KEEP YOUR SKIN NOURISHED IN THE COOLER WEATHER: As the weather cools down in Melbourne, you may find your skin goes haywire, especially if you have naturally dry skin. There are so many things you can do to make sure your skin is well nourished over the colder months of the year! 🐠 essential fats, specifically omega-3 rich products are vital for dry skin... so eat lots of oily fish! 🌱don’t be afraid to use heavier moisturisers and night creams/oils. Your skin is completely different in the colder weather, so what would be unthinkable in summer may be a welcome change in winter. ☀️ continue wearing sunscreen as UVA will still get through... never trust the clouds! 🥦we generally exercise less when it becomes colder, and this affects our lymphatic circulation, which can lead to puffiness and congestion. Increase your intake of green vegetables and ginger to combat this. Following our lymphatic drainage guasha routine is also a great way to see instant movement of puffiness! 💧water is a tricky one. While your skin will thrive if you’re well hydrated (so keep up your intake of h20!), topical water application to your skin may need to be modified. Avoid using hot water on your face and consider ditching water all together when cleansing your skin, perhaps use an oil or cream cleanser. 🌿guasha your face daily! Guasha will assist with both moisture and puffiness from poor circulation of lymphatic fluids. 🌿acupuncture! Nothing brings moisture to the skin like it!

WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A CLEANSING OIL INGREDIENT LIST? 1- avoid cleansing oils that contain sodium laurel sulphate, fragrance, parabens or alcohol. Some of these ingredients actually negate the use of a cleansing oil so these ingredients are a real no go. 2- avoid oils such as parraffin, mineral oil, petrolatum, propylene glycol and butylene glycol. While they are technically oils, they’re horrible for your skin and are just used as cheap filler ingredients. 3- look for ingredients such as seed oils and nut oils. Examples of these are: 🌱grapeseed oil 🌱castor oil 🌱olive oil 🌱argan oil 🌱sunflower oil 🌱jojoba oil 🌱hemp seed oil 🌱apricot kernel oil

Today I read that one in five American children do not drink water. Like... at all. Patients really underestimate what not drinking water does to your body. It’s not an old wives tale. It’s not some alternative health perspective. It’s not a suggestion. Every aspect of your body and health will worsen with dehydration. Including your skin. I see patients with skin conditions, from teenagers through to adults, and so many of them ONLY needed to drink water to rectify their skin concerns. They don’t need acupuncture, they don’t need herbs. They don’t need roaccutane. They need water! Of course, if you don’t drink water and instead consume sugary drinks, then that’s a whole other type of issue, causing enormous amounts of inflammation in your body, often erupting on your skin. Ditch all other drinks for a fortnight and just drink water and see how you feel!

CLEAN YOUR OILY FACE... WITH OIL Oil cleansers seem counterintuitive, but it’s actually water based cleansers and soaps that don’t make sense! At the end of a long day out and about, our skin may have the following on it -dirt and dust -sebum -sunscreen -makeup -sweat By using an oil cleanser on our face, the oil attaches itself to these other forms of oil and dirt to our skin, which we can then remove easily with a warm washcloth. Your skin is left clean and moisturised, instead of that tight ‘squeaky’ clean feeling that can happen after cleansing with regular soaps. Using oil cleansers also help to regulate excessive oil production during the day! Oil cleansers can be used by almost every skin type (patients with pimples that worsen to topical oils may need to do a test patch)

AUTOIMMUNE CONDITIONS, DEADLY NIGHTSHADES AND YOUR SKIN Some patients have suspected autoimmune conditions for years before they finally get an official diagnosis, and in that prediagnosis time they struggle with symptoms of inflammation. This inflammation can appear anywhere in or on the body, and patients often find that the skin on their face changes dramatically when they change their diet to be less inflammatory. Deadly nightshades are a group of fruits and vegetables that I frequently recommend patients to avoid in order to reduce autoimmune inflammation. So what are deadly nightshades? -capsicum -tomato -eggplant -potato (sweet potato and yams are fine though) -goji berries -chillies -tobacco If you have an autoimmune condition and skin conditions, give deadly nightshades a miss for a couple of weeks to see how your skin reacts.

DO YOU REALLY HAVE OILY SKIN? A lot of cosmetic patients I see fill in their intake form and state that they have oily skin. But then they disclose they don’t apply moisturiser or oil to their face, day or night. It takes a while for me to convince them to try, because they’re often certain that using moisturiser on their already oily skin will make it even worse, but once they do, only a few find they have truly ‘oily’ skin. The reason for this is that we wash our faces, cleanse them, apply toner, strip our skin of its natural oil. If we then leave it at that, our skin overcompensates by producing too much oil. However, if we keep our skin moisturised, both superficially with day cream and on a deeper level with night oils, our skin will often slow down with its production of oils. If you think this might be you, but you’re apprehensive to try, start with a night cream or oil and work your way up to a day moisturiser.

I DRINK ENOUGH WATER... said no one, ever. You need to be well hydrated for your scalp, skin, whites of eyes, eye bags, lymph, lips, hair and nails. Without water, we can visibly deteriorate in a matter of hours, and this includes deepening of wrinkles. Drinking enough water can actually make a huge difference!

GOOD SLEEP EQUALS A RADIANT FACE. Poor sleep... not so much. If you find that your skin looks clearer or the bags under your eyes less noticeable or your wrinkles smoother when you’re on holidays, it’s likely because you overindulge in sleep when you’re away. There are SO MANY ways to improve your sleep! Here are just a few ideas: -charge your phone in another room (so that means not next to your bed) -stop looking at your phone/computer/tv at least an hour before bed -keep your room as dark as possible -get rid of the tv from your bedroom -skip the alcohol during dinner -go light on dinner. A half kilo steak an hour before bed will definitely keep some people awake for hours!

You have to do all the hard work when you’re having a course of treatment with acupuncture. I might see you for an hour a week, and I’ll calm you down or get your digestion working or smooth out your forehead wrinkles. You then have the remaining 167 hours of the week to be kind to yourself, to eat well, to relax your facial muscles. You’re the real MVP in this relationship!

WE HAVE ZILCH! Seed Chinese Medicine is now stocking Zilch, the game changing Chinese Herbal treatment for acne. This is THE formula for patients with cystic acne. The results are simply stunning, head over to zilchacne.com.au for more info. Zilch is vegan and gluten free, and 100% Australian owned.