Acne gives the combination of symptoms like greasy skin, white heads, black heads, pimples, inflammation and scar formation. Acne mostly affects young people in the age 14 – 25, but also sometimes older persons, like women in their menopause. Most teenagers experience outburst of acne, some only little, but for others acne may develop into a serious skin ailment with great cosmetic impact.
THE SKIN ANATOMY
To understand the acne process, some knowledge about skin anatomy and physiology is essential:
The skin has there layers: The outer layer called epidermis consists of epithelial cells. Under this lies the dermis consisting of connective tissue. At the bottom there is a layer called the hypodermis consisting mostly of fat cells.
The skin has narrow pores extending from the surface down to the top of the sub-dermis, called hair follicles. A hair extend from a growth zone in the bottom of each hair follicle and out at the skin surface. Around the hair in the dermis, there are small glands called sebaceous glands. These glands produce a fatty substance, sebum, which empty through the follicle opening and lubricates the hair and the skin. Read more…
What is Acne?
Acne is a chronic disorder of the hair follicles and sebaceous glands. Some of the characteristics of acne include black heads, pimples, cysts, infected abscesses, and rarely scarring. Acne usually occurs during adolescence in both men and women. To be more specific, acne starts during puberty and tends to get worse for people with oily skin. Acne badly affects teenage boys. Only mild to moderate forms of acne occur in middle-aged women. Acne can be seen most commonly on the face. The other places where it can occur include the neck, chest, back, shoulders, scalp, and upper arms and legs. Most forms of acne are the result of heredity and hormonal problems and has nothing to do with a harmful diet or poor hygiene.
Types of acne
Acne starts in a similar way for all but can take different forms and can react in a unique way according to the body conditions of the individual. A basic lesion called the comedo is the begining of acne. The comedo is an enlarged hair follicle plugged with oil and bacteria residing under the surface of your skin, that waits for the right conditions to grow into an inflamed lesion. Whenever the skin produces more oil, the bacteria grows within the swollen follicle. The surrounding skin becomes increasingly inflamed as your white blood cells fight against the intruders. Two main types of acne include non-inflammatory acne and inflammatory acne. Read more…
An inflammatory disease of the skin, acne, comes about due to changes in the skin structure, that consisty of hair follicle and their sebaceous glands. Commong during puberty, acne, is the bodies response to changing testosterone hormones. Because of the randomness of the bodies response, acne for most people will come and go, and in most cases will completely dissappear over time. This time length is different for every individual, but is usually early twenties. There is now way for medical professionals to predict the acne timeline for an individual. Some individuals will even be affected by acne several users later, in their thirties and forties.
Although acne is not a very pleasant condition to have, due to the large array of people that it affects at some point in their life, it has become somewhat socially acceptable if kept under control. “Common Acne” is the most wide spread form of acne, which is as a result of naturally occurring dead skin cells blocking the hair follicles while an excessive of oil is secreted from the skin glands. Oil that is blocked under the skin builds up, and provides the perfect environment for bacteria to uncontrolably multiply. The Part of the Infection that we are used to seeing is the visible lesion that becomes visable as the skin inflames. Most individuals are only affected with acne on their face, but it should be noted that acne can affect the chest, back, shoulders, among other areas of the body as well. Read more…
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