At one time or another, people seem to suffer from acne, which generally means that you end up with one or more pimples on your face. They’re unsightly, sometimes painful, and you can spend plenty of money trying to get rid of them. But what is a pimple, what causes them, and what are the best ways to treat them? Let’s learn a little bit about what makes pimples such a common problem.

Blockage

Our skin is covered with tiny little holes, called pores. These pores are important to ensuring that we sweat, keeping our body temperatures regulated. However, one of the substances that these pores secrete is called sebum, which is a sticky substance. As the outer layers of skin are shed, a process which happens continuously, some of the dead skin cells might mix with the sebum, blocking pores. This is the start of a pimple, because then further secretions of sebum back up behind the blocked pore. This blockage tends to occur most often at puberty, when the skin starts to become thicker, which explains why teens often have pimples.

Whiteheads

The backup of sebum, however, is only the start of the pimple. As the sebum is stuck under the skin, it will start to harbor bacteria, including proprionibacterium acnes, which is the bacteria that actually causes the swelling of the pimple. However, some people will note that in addition to a red swelling where the infected site is, there may be a whitehead, a discolored spot at the center. This is a result of the workings of a person’s immune system; that is, white blood cells go to the infected area to try to fight off the acne bacteria, resulting in a whitehead.. You don’t always see the whitehead, since sometimes this occurs a little deeper in the skin.

Treatment

Knowing how pimples are made helps us to know what to do to treat them. Since the initial problem is the way that pores get blocked, good exfoliation will help the body to better shed dead skin cells, resulting in clearer pores. Because the actual pimple is caused by bacteria, topical creams such as benzoyl peroxide creams will help to rid people of that bacteria. Such creams also help to dissolve some of the materials, such as keratin, that blocks the pore. However, because this bacteria can spread with contact, it follows that you should not ever force a pimple to burst, since that will spread the bacteria over the skin, resulting in further outbreaks. With this knowledge, you should be better able to understand how to treat the pimples that show up on your face.

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