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QUINCY, ILL. -- If you have acne and are sick of using all the creams and gels to get rid of it, the Quincy Medical Group has another option for you.

"BLU-U is a fluorescent light that is scattered over a large area used to treat porphyrins in the skin that cause acne and destroying them, and clearing skin" Dana Simons, a registered nurse in the dermatology department at Quincy Medical Group said.

BLU-U Blue Light Photodynamic Therapy is the latest treatment used on moderate acne ... and it may also be the easiest.

"The patient comes in, the skin is washed clean, they sit inside the U-shape BLU-U light and we turn it on and sessions last 16 minutes and 40 seconds and that's it," Simons said.

Sessions are once or twice a week for typically four weeks, depending on the severity of your case. But don't go sitting in front of a fluorescent light bulb and expect the same results.

"The bulb that they use is concentrated on a specific wavelength that has the potency to kill off the bacteria," Dr. Sheldon Shore, dermatologist at Quincy Medical Group said.

BLU-U was originally used to treat pre cancerous skin and has only recently been used on acne.

"Makers of the BLU light did studies and showed that it was showing clearing and we've put it to use since then," Simons said.

The treatment has been at the Quincy Medical Group for almost four months now and has shown positive results.

"We've had great success, clearing of the skin, acnes not coming back, they weren't having to follow regimes of using topicals day and night," Simons said. "I've had them cry in my office."

The procedure is gentle and usually well tolerated by patients. It has little to no side effects except for occasional skin sensitivity resembling sun burn.