PIH is a problem for some people with eczema. It causes the skin in areas that were inflamed to become a darker skin color than your regular skin hue. PIH can be colored from a slightly darker tinted hue all the way to a darker grey dirty looking brown color. This article will talk about PIH and 2 treatments for it.

Hydroquinone

The more popular treatment for PIH had been hydroquinone. Hydroquinone is a drug that was successful at reducing the rate at which the skin’s melanin cells produced melanin. Melanin is the dye or pigment that gives your skin its color.

What happens in cases of PIH is that the inflammation from the eczema had damaged the melanin cells, and they then produce an off colored pigment or skin color.

Whatever color pigment that the melanin cells produce, is the color that your skin will be. When hydroquinone was being used the drug was usually able to clear up the effects of PIH in less than a year, depending upon the severity of the case. However, the use of the drug has been banned in Europe, Australia and Japan. There are 4 problems that they say they have with hydroquinone.

They say that people who use the drug have higher levels of mercury in their bodies than people who do not use hydroquinone. Hydroquinone is also suspected of causing poisoning in the unborn children of pregnant women. Another danger that is attributed to hydroquinone use is the increased probability of having adrenal glands that function abnormally.

A fifth claim that hydroquinone use causes cancer is denied by researchers at the American Academy of Dermatology. Their claim is that the process of study related to cancer was flawed. They suggest that the cancer experiments were done on laboratory rats that were fed unusually high amounts of the drug for a very long period of time. Furthermore, they stand behind the drug saying that all of the claims are unfounded, and that once the drug is used according to instructions, it is safe for use.

Newer treatments

Since hydroquinone has been banned, the combination of mequinol and tretinoin are being more popularly used for the treatment of PIH. It is not a new treatment in that it was recently discovered, but it is new because it is replacing the other drug that people have come to fear.

Mequinol 2% and tretinoin 0.01% is a mixture that was used for a while to treat PIH in darker skinned people. However, now that hydroquinone is banned its use is becoming less specialized.

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Broyde McDonald is an experienced writer on the subject of Baby Eczema Treatments also.