Dark spots
Dark spots are caused by high production of melanin in one area of the skin; melanin is a chemical in your body that is responsible for your skin color. These dark spots are called hyper-pigmentation. If you think that dark spots are permanent, good news, they are not; it just takes longer time for some to fade away than others and with the help of the ideas below, you can make the fading process much faster. Unlike scars that are permanent without treatment, dark spots take three to six months to fade away on their own without treatment; scars occur when the normal skin tissues are destroyed by injury from an accident and then replaced by the body with fibrous tissues.
Determine the cause
Determining the cause of a problem is the first step in solving the problem, it makes the solution easier and straight forward, it shows you what you have to do in order to solve the problem and prevent more from occurring. You have to determine the cause of your dark spots in order to get rid of them; this will guide you in removing them and also stopping new ones from surfacing.
A lot of factors are responsible for the formation of dark spots on our body; the dark spots that they can cause are classified into three types:
Lentigines are hyper-pigmentation in our body caused by exposure from the ultra-violet rays of the sun; the dark spot appears scattered on our body with no pattern.
Post-inflammatory hyper-pigmentation (PIH) is another type which can be caused by burns, acne, psoriasis and certain skin care treatments; it is as a result of trauma to the skin.
Melasma is the last type of dark spots and it is caused by hormonal fluctuation or thyroid dysfunction; melasma can occur in women during pregnancy or menopause, i.e. when their hormones are in flux.
Getting rid of dark spots
You can easily get rid of some dark spots while others are really hard to remove; this depends on how and when the spots appeared. There are different methods of getting rid of dark spots which include:
Natural treatments
Lemon juice has proven highly effective in removing dark spots, it contains Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) which slough off the top layer of your skin and thereby removing the dark spot from the surface. Firstly rub the fresh juice on the affected area of your skin, wait until it dries up and wash it off with water. It might take up to two weeks of daily application before your dark spots clear up depending on the size of the spot and the nature of your body.
Rubbing aloe vera on the affected area is another natural way of removing dark spots, aloe vera has been used for treating various skin problems over many years; it has a healing property that evens out your skin tone.
Medical treatments
If you want to get rid of dark spots faster, medical treatments are the best way to go; common treatments include laser therapy, chemical peel, and microdermabrasion. Laser therapy is a dark spot treatment which uses quick pulses of light to destroy the melanin that causes dark spots in the pigmented areas; it is expensive but really effective. Chemical peel and microdermabrasion are also used to treat dark spots by removing the top layer of the skin so that new and fresh ones will grow under it; chemical peel uses acid to remove the top skin while microdermabrasion is done by using very fine crystals to scrap off the affected areas.
