What Is Acne
What is Acne?
By Adriane White
The official medical description of acne is that it is a chronic disease of the pilosebaceous follicle. The pilosebaceous follicle is the part of your body that is made up of the hair shaft and follicle, the sebaceous gland, and the little muscle that make your hair rise when it contracts. If you have ever had the experience of having your hair stand on end, it is this muscle that is making that happen. This little muscle is called the erector pili. So you can see why it is called the follicle that is affected by acne is called pilosebaceous. It is a combination of the pili muscle and the sebaceous gland.
We should look more closely at this follicle and the sebaceous gland part of it. It is a tiny gland in your skin. It is so tiny, it can only be seen clearly under a microscope. Its job in your body is to keep your skin and hair lubricated. The lubrication comes from an oily waxy substance, sebum, that these glands create.
These glands are all over your body except for the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet. Look at them and you will see that they are smoother than the rest of your body in that they don't have pores.There are more sebaceous glands on your face and scalp than the rest of your body. There are special sebaceous glands in your eyelids that keep your tears lubricated.
When these pilisebaceous gland get infected, the result is acne. Medically speaking, acne is is referred to as polymorph cutaneous lesions. Polymorph means that it can exist in more than one form. Cutaneous basically means skin. The polymorphic forms include comedones, papules, cysts, pustules, and abscesses. Translated this means that when the gland is infected, your skin breaks out into a variety of pimples.
What is a comedome? You might know it as a blackhead. A papule is a blind pimple, so called because it has no head. It's just a little bump on your skin. A cyst is a sac that is filled with fluid or clogged with sebum. A pustule is a bump filled with pus, which is nothing more than dead cells that were killed in the battle between the infected gland and the cells that came to its aid. When there is a big collection of pus that gets trapped it becomes an abscess.
The more you know about your enemy, the better you can handle it. Knowing just what acne is can help you deal with it in a more rational manner.
Adriane White is an expert in curing acne. For more helpful information about acne and expert tips and tricks, please read all of Adriane's articles.
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