It is often noticed that most of the treatment regimens and discussions about acne are usually focused on facial acne, whereas body acne remained an unattended issue. However only an agonized sufferer knows what kind of pain in the neck it could be. Acne on back, chest, thighs, and other body parts are found to be common on teenagers and adults who are usually engaged into exhaustive physical activity. The skin type of the body is totally different from that of face, and therefore their occurrence, nature and treatment approaches are also slightly different.
What Are The Causal Factors?
Clothes made of abrasive materials, heavy backpacks, especially their straps which generate vigorous rubbing against the skin often bear the responsibility of triggering body acne in most of the instances. Harsh clothes and the straps of backpacks or bags often generate friction on the shoulders, back and other body parts which in turn initiate extreme skin irritation and forms acne on the affected regions.
Excessive perspiration is one more contributing factor in this regard. It is commonly found that excessive sweating aggravates skin irritation. And therefore it is a bane for people who experience heavy sweating due to exhaustive work schedules or don’t go through regular habit of taking bath.
Similar irritation could also be generated by friction with tight fitting clothes, or tight collars. Such clothes, especially those made up of synthetic fabrics often result in entrapping of perspiration as well. This is particularly harmful for patients who are already suffering from body acne.
As with any form of common acne, excessive secretion of body oil plays a very significant role in augmenting acne on body surface. Several body parts, especially the back and chest area contain a greater number of oil glands, which, if over stimulated, might clog the skin pores together with the dead skin cells, thereby shooting up a higher risk of acne formation. Too much production of body oil by the hyperactive oil glands cause the exfoliated dead skin cells stick together and form a mass to block the open hair follicles and entrap the sebum within the follicle itself. Bacterial buildup within these affected skin pores might worsen the condition.
Sometimes physicians associate hormonal imbalance and stressful situations with the onset of body acne. Presence of a higher amount of male hormone or androgen stimulates the sebaceous glands embedded within the epidermal layer of the skin. As an inevitable outcome, the amount of oil secretion is increased.
Different Approaches to Combat Body Acne
Therapeutic and preventive measures are essential for patients who are suffering from body acne, not only for healing up the lesions, but also to suppress any further reappearance.
Under no circumstances should the pimples be picked, popped or rubbed and scrubbed vigorously in an attempt to clear the skin or flatten the lesions. One must remember that such actions might aggravate the acne condition by inflicting irritation and stimulating the oil producing glands to discharge a higher amount of body oil.
Avoid any condition that might generate friction on the body skin surface, and this include carrying heavy backpacks, tight fitting apparels, clothes made of synthetic or coarse, and abrasive materials and the like. Getting rid of body acne is possible only by fighting heavy perspiration.
Take regular bath, particularly after some exhaustive physical work and make this a daily schedule. Use some mild body soaps instead of hard ones on the acne inflicted skin surface. Soft sugar scrubs could be used for exfoliating dead skin cells of the back, since this body part consists of a rather less tender skin than face. However, you need to be cautious if you have an overall sensitive skin.
Treating body acne topically is somewhat arduous since it is often difficult to reach the areas where the pimples grow, especially when it is your back. But if you can manage it, then salicylic acid would be the best keratolytic to peel off the dead skin cells.
But the dryness caused by it sometimes brings about a new set of troubles which could be fought with the help of the following regimen:
- Two tsp olive oil
- One tsp calendula oil
- One drop of tea tree oil
- One tsp almond oil
- One drop of chamomile oil
- One drop of lavender oil
Nevertheless, if you feel the situation is going out of hand then visiting a dermatologist would be the best idea.
And in such cases different doses of antibiotics or Accutane are often administered on the patients depending on the severity of the cases.
