Revealed: Treatment Options for Dark Armpit & Dark Neck

Who else wants to get rid of Dark Underarm & Dark Neck?

It’s not really been long that while I was trying to promote my blog & make quality backlinks (you know it’s really new, started out in the second week of June this year) & I was desperately browsing content aggregators like Quora & I came across zillions of questions pointing out to one single topic : some people are really troubled by body parts that are darker than the rest of the body. To be clearer, like many of us regularly suffer from dark neck, back, dark midriff or even dark butt. Some of the affected body parts never get the chance to heal because sometimes we’re too embarrassed to talk about this.

I know some people are too shy to even consult a dermatologist about it if the affected body part is suppose, the butt. I can completely understand the situation. But there goes the advantage of the internet. Keeping anonymity helps us to talk about even the most embarrassing situations of ours.

I constantly get answer requests from such people who’re currently suffering from dark neck, dark butt or dark midriff or any discolored body part.

Darkness is not the point here, rather if the darkness of a body part looks like a mismatch to other body parts (suppose your neck is darker than the rest of your body) it becomes intimidating.

So, today we’re going to talk about this problem of discolored body parts & how to treat dark neck, back, butt & midriff.

Skin lightening has always been a controversial subject but I don’t think it should be if it comes to treating specific darkened (read discolored) body parts. Dark skin is different from having dark skin in specific body parts & lighter skin in the rest of the body.

There are popular skin-lightening techniques that can be successfully employed in treating this condition of mismatched darkness. We’ll break them down one one by one.

                            Please be aware that discoloration of a body part is only a symptom & the causes can be vastly different in each case, even some body parts may be vulnerable to a certain cause while others may have their own reasons & that’s why we’re going to discuss them individually because every case is mutually exclusive.

But I have noticed that there are some body parts whose causes of discoloration are often similar. So, I’ve decided to take these body parts into consideration together & make two installments of this discussion. On the first installment, we’ll talk about the body parts whose discoloration has similar reason most often & are normally present together in an individual’s body & the second installment (read post) of this discussion would be about body parts that may or may not have similar reasons & are mostly mutually exclusive (read, not always present together in one’s body). 

First let me list out of what we are going to talk about one by one:

·         Dark Neck

·         Dark Armpit

·         Dark Midriff

·         Dark Back

·         Dark Butt

·         Dark Knees & Elbows

·         Dark Knuckles (hands & feet both)

In my first installment (THIS POST), I’ll group together three body parts that are most commonly affected by the same root cause: Dark Neck, Dark armpit & Dark Knuckles.

Now why have I grouped only three of these body parts (Neck, Armpit & Knuckles) together?

Because, in my experience, most people who have complains about darkness or discoloration of any one of the body part mentioned above, are also presented with the other two body parts similarly discolored or dark.

First, let me discuss these three body parts individually about the common causes of darkness.

How to treat dark neck/dark armpit/dark knuckles of hands & feet?

I have seen like thousand times people with much lighter skin tone have neck (mostly back of their neck) having surprisingly darker skin. Especially the back of the neck is mostly affected & the darkness exaggerates in multiple skin folds.

The most common reason of such a situation is dirt & sun damage. Because of our morphology, many of us cannot reach the back of our neck, neither can we see it & thus while in the shower; we fail to cleanse it properly & the dirt builds up over the year & it becomes naturally darker than the rest of your body. If this is the case, it comes mostly with another reason: severe sun damage.

We naturally give more importance to our face & arms (only recently) than any other part, rest assured the back of the neck is a second class citizen in our body & we often don’t care to apply sunscreen over there & this is a huge mistake.

Similar thing applies to dark armpit. Armpit is even more neglected than the neck.

Sunscreen alone can solve 50% of the tan that you’ve acquired over time, so from the next morning, do not forget to apply a dollop amount of sunblock on the back & front of your neck atleast three times a day even if you’re indoors. No excuses, sorry.

Now coming to the dirt build up point. If you haven’t cleansed your neck for years & now suddenly obsessing over the damaged skin over there, soap alone will not be able to help you out.

But don’t worry, there’s a better choice. Every medical shop out there keeps “isopropyl alcohol” or in short ‘isopropanol 70%’ or simply ‘doctor’s rubbing alcohol’. It’s the thing that’s used to rub your skin before injections. It’s very cheap (about 25-30 Rs.) & is basically alcohol (70% alcohol in 30% distilled water).

You can simply take some of it in a cotton ball & rub it on the affected area once daily followed up by your favourite moisturizer (moisturization is a must because alcohol has a drying effect on your skin).

You’ll see difference in a month but you have to be consistent with sunscreen application in the mean time or all your hard work will go in vain.

You’ll be surprised to see the amount of dirt on the cotton ball after alcohol rubbing.

Sometimes, even coconut oil can do the trick. Just like I’m asking you to do it with rubbing alcohol, take a bit of coconut oil in a cotton ball & simply rub the affected area to see dirt & grim coming out. As an added advantage of coconut oil, you won’t even have to follow up with moisturizer because coconut oil is excellent as a moisturizer cum cleanser itself. It’s truly a multi tasker.

But however, do not expect coconut oil to be as effective as Isopropanol.

This condition is termed Dermatosis Neglecta (dirt build up due to years of neglect), & it’ll resolve over time with the process mentioned above but you need to be patient & consistent. This huge amount of dirt hasn’t built up in a day, so it cannot be reversed overnight.

But there are some cases when alcohol cannot do anything, simply because what you’re seeing is not dirt. You’ll know it’s not dermatosis neglecta because you’ve always cleaned the neck thoroughly in the shower but still it’s darker. 

So how do you treat your dark neck/ dark underarm now?

However, sometimes the dark neck can also be a result of tanning due to sun exposure & pollution. If this is the case, I’d recommend these home remedies (http://thebeautyblogoflove.blogspot.com/2018/06/diy-home-remedy-for-easy-tan-removal-or.html ) along with regular sunscreen application & if possible, cover the area in the sun with protective clothing.

Whatever the reason is, & whatever treatment option you choose, do not forget to cleanse the area everyday while bathing & do not forget the sunscreen.

If it’s not dirt, it must be a condition termed Acanthosis Nigricans (condition associated mostly with dark armpit). A. nigricans is a metabolic syndrome that can have various reasons but mostly: obesity & high blood sugar. So, in most cases, treating the two will resolve the problem. You better start exercising & maintain optimal blood glucose with diet & lifestyle changes to resolve it also keep applying sunscreen to actually see the results.

However, sometimes even maintaining optimal blood glucose fails, as in the case of mine.

I had terribly dark feet knuckles (never had the problem of dark neck though) & it didn’t even respond to hardcore exercising along with low-carbohydrate diets.

I used to be a fitness freak but it didn’t resolve my problem. The trouble with acanthosis nigricans is that it is a preconceived notion that it’s only reason is obesity & hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) which is not true, I had 24 inches waist & my feet was almost black due to this reason.

To make things worse, it didn’t even respond to any kind of skin treatment I even knew. However, to let you in detail, let me consider what treatments you have alongside lowering your blood glucose level & body weight first.

The first thing comes to my mind when treating this condition is chemical peeling.

So, here are the treatments available for Acanthosis Nigricans:

Treatment Option 1 for dark neck, dark underarms & dark knuckles (Acanthosis Nigricans) : Chemical Peels

Now please be aware that chemical peels for acanthosis nigricans work best for armpits & work the least for feet & work moderately for dark neck. There are a plenty of acids to choose from depending on your skin type:

If you have oily or combination skin--> Salicylic acid

Normal skin --> Glycolic acid

Dry Skin--> Lactic acid

Sensitive skin--> Mandelic acid

However, the above mentioned peels are all ‘light peels’ & can be substituted with each other depending on the situation & are less aggressive, thus; safer. I’m explicitly mentioning light peels because it’s suitable for almost everyone.

People with dark skin tend to acquire Post-Inflammatory Hyperpigmentation after the skin peels & it takes another 2-3 months to treat the pigmentation caused by peels, thus it’s highly counter-productive. If however, the peel is on the lighter side, like those mentioned above, you’ll have less chance of getting dark spots/ PIH from chemical peels as a side effect.

But at times, you’ll find light peels don’t work much. Depending on your vulnerability of getting Post Inflammatory hyperpigmentation (dark spots as side effects of chemical peels), you may choose a medium to deep peel such as TCA.

However, I humbly request you to consult a professional for medium strength peels like TCA peel.

I’m a huge fan of TCA peels since I had mostly dark spots on my feet knuckles. Since feet skin is thicker than armpit or neck, a deeper peel like TCA works better than lighter peels on feet. But surprisingly, in my case, TCA didn’t seem to help much. It cleared up the knuckle surrounding tanned skin but it couldn’t help those dark knuckles, which made me roll over to other treatment options.

But before mentioning other options, let me first give you an insight on the standard procedure of a chemical peel. These days acids of differing strength are available on popular websites like flipkart or amazon.

Most popular are 30-35% glycolic acid, or salicylic acid for lighter ones & for the deeper ones, TCA 30% works well. It’s done like this:

·         First the affected part (back of the neck, armpit or feet) is cleaned with rubbing alcohol using a cotton ball & is left to completely dry. *** do not apply the peel while the area is still wet or it’ll lower the strength of the peel.

·         The acid is applied using a fan brush (makeup brush: fan brush) & left for 3-4 minutes if it’s a strong peel like TCA 30%, 10 minutes if it’s a light peel & overnight if it’s a leave-on Yellow peel.

·         A neutralizer (generally comes as a freebie with your peel or you can buy it separately) is applied to neutralize the skin after the specific time period as mentioned above.  However, you need to know a few rules of neutralizing. The neutralizer’s job is to restore skin PH from acidic to back to normal & render the acid ineffective. You have to neutralize a light chemical peel all the time but TCA peel being the exception, which self neutralizes. So, if you’re doing TCA, you don’t need a neutralizer & you also don’t need a neutralizer in ‘leave on yellow peel’.

You can always make your own neutralizer easily at home instead of paying for it. You can simply add 1 tsp of baking soda in 1 cup distilled water along with ½ tsp glycerin & mix it well. This can be as effective as branded neutralizers available in the market/online.

Even you can easily substitute neutralizer with plain water. I do it all the time. You can simply wash off the peel with cold water gently to neutralize it.

·         You need to keep an eye on “frosting”. After an acid is on your skin for a while, you may feel a little burn (depending on its strength) & only then you’ll start to see white patches on your skin where it’ll burn more. These patches are actually degraded skin (epidermal) protein & it shows that no matter how long it took you to acquire white patches (even if it’s 30 secs), you need to neutralize it immediately. These white patches are called frosting & are generally considered as marker for the need of immediate neutralization. So, neutralize as soon as you feel burning or see frosting.

·         Now, after neutralization, it’ll start to feel tight & will take a few days before you can actually see any peeling, so you need to keep the area moisturized. I prefer coconut oil. Some also suggest antiseptic ointments to keep infections as bay. However, light peels don’t need that. But if you’re prone to Post inflammatory hyperpigmentation, you can apply a simple hydrocortisone cream & follow up with a triple combination kligman’s formula cream with hydroquinone until it peels off.

·         Chemical peeling won’t do any good if you’re not paying attention to applying sunscreen religiously. So you better stick to an SPF 50 PA +++ (atleast) sunscreen & cover the area with cotton cloth during the day for a month onwards & literally get married to sunscreen for life from now on.

Now as I earlier said, chemical peeling didn’t work for me in treating my dark knuckles. So I moved on to the next thing I could try:

Treatment Option 2: Dermaroller:  Dermaroller or Microneedling is the holy grail when it comes to treat Acanthosis Nigricans on knuckles. Dermaroller is a rolling device with about 550 needles of length ranging from 0.5 mm to about 2 mm. However, please be assured that this is a professional treatment & shall not be exercised at home.

This time, it worked for me. I derma-rolled the hard dark skin patches on feet followed by applying a Kojic Acid cream & it took about a month to show results. But please consult a dermatologist to do this.

Treatment Option 3: DIY Treatments: I had read about this ayurvedic recipe (somewhere I don’t remember) to treat A. nigricans in dark neck/ dark armpit but it didn’t work for me, but I think it’s worth mentioning. If it didn’t work for me, doesn’t mean it won’t work for you. You can try this at home & rest assured, it won’t harm even if it doesn’t help much.-->

Herbal/Ayurvedic Recipe to Treat Dark Armpit & Dark Neck: Take an inch of camphor & put it in a pan & heat it until it melts. Now turn the heat off & put it in an air tight container & add a few drops of tea tree oil & ½ tsp tamanu oil. Mix well & apply this twice a day.

Tea tree oil is said to help a lot in fading A. Nigricans & tamanu oil helps in treating discolorations in armpit & neck (any body part).

Treatment Option 4: Skin Lightening Treatments: Mostly since A. Nigricans is a metabolic syndrome, it doesn’t respond well to topical skin lightening creams but in some cases, response has been noted with limited efficiency. You can browse the options here-->

http://thebeautyblogoflove.blogspot.com/2018/06/15-acnepimple-scar-treatment-options.html

Above I mentioned everything I knew about possible treatments of dark armpit & dark neck.

However, efficiency can vary from person to person depending on genetic makeup to consistency & also on the extent the person practices sun protection.

This is the first installment on darkened or discolored body part & we shall continue to the next & the final installment on this later.

But please be aware that the above information is not a substitute of proper medical guidance & is for educational purpose only as each case is unique. The publisher cannot be deemed liable for any loss at the user’s end as consequence of exercising the above. To know more about the policy, continue-->

http://thebeautyblogoflove.blogspot.com/p/disclaimer.html

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Thank you for reading,

Cheers!!!

Koyel M.