What Is Acne?
Acne Vulgaris, what most of us just call acne, is a chronic skin condition that affects nearly 85% of Americans at some point in their lives.
Acne forms when our pores become clogged with dead skin cells, sebum and bacteria.
Why do we get acne?! All of our pores contain a hair follicle and a sebaceous gland, which produces sebum, our skin’s natural oil.
The body is constantly regenerating and shedding dead cells, but when those dead skin cells get trapped within the sebum of our skin, they combine to create noninflammatory acne. These are known as blackheads and whiteheads.
If bacteria is present on the skin, it can combine with the dead cells and oil and cause an infection, otherwise known as inflammatory acne.
Let’s chat types of acne:
Noninflammatory Acne — also called comedones, are simply clogged pores.
A blackhead is an open comedone, meaning that the clogged pore is open to the surface of the skin, and the air has oxidized the gunk inside, turning it black.
A whitehead is a closed comedone, meaning the dead skin and sebum are unexposed but trapped within the skin.
Inflammatory Acne — Propionibacterium Acnes, or P. Acnes for short, is a bacteria that loves to feed on the sebum within our skin. When P. Acnes bacteria gets into clogged pores it reproduces rapidly, causing inflammation. Then your body realizes something is awry, and rushes blood to the scene — causing even more redness and inflammation.
Papules and pustules are the main types of inflammatory acne. Papules are red and hard, and pustules usually have a white head that’s surrounded by red, irritated skin.
Hormonal acne — Hormone imbalances that trigger breakouts also increase the inflammation and sebum production in your skin, which can lead to clogged hair follicles and increased growth of the bacteria P. acnes, often resulting in inflammatory papules and pustules.
Struggling with acne or know someone who is? Tag them below or message me. I would love to help you
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