Acne vulgaris, a more common for which is acne, is one of the most widely spread skin diseases. It is widespread in youngsters and needs treatment as soon as possible. Once there are acne scars, they are challenging to treat and can even worsen the texture of your skin.
Though it is a common disease, people tend to follow DIY treatments and masks to treat their acne. It is where the problem occurs; instead of that, you need a proper skincare routine advised by a certified derma and not just anyone.
But why? Because there isn’t just one type of acne and common reasons for it to occur. Only your dermatologist can identify the cause and type of acne and create your skincare routine.
These products are readily available from a custom skin care manufacturer and aren’t hard to find. The main problem occurs when you don’t know the issue and start using the products without much knowledge and proper guidance. Read below to learn more about types of acne.
What Is Hormonal Acne?
Glands produce an ample amount of oil to protect the skin. This oil is essential to protect itself from environmental particles. Since everybody has different skin, the different produce amounts of oil give a general idea of the kind of skin a person has.
A person has oily skin when a person’s hormonal levels trigger the oil-producing glands to overproduce oils. Further, when the pores become congested and trap dirt and bacteria, they form acne. Because hormonal disbalance triggers such acne due to hormones, these are hormonal acne.
A person can find such acne increasing during their hormonal period. It’s not necessary for pimples to form in this period; you can even find blackheads, whiteheads, congested pores, and painful lesions.
There can be other reasons for hormonal acne, such as stress, genetic history, medication side effects, underlying disease symptoms, or undergoing testosterone treatment. These can appear on the chest, neck, shoulders, face, and back.
Many women even experience hormonal acne during pregnancy because of the above reasons. When your hormonal acne is growing, make sure to curate your skincare around your current issues only and that no irritant is present in your routine.
What Is Bacterial Acne?
For any type of acne to be formed, bacteria are responsible, except fungal acne. For the formation of pimples, you need oil, bacteria, and dead skin cells. That is, any type or even regular acne is bacterial acne.
It is also why people are advised not to touch their faces to avoid spreading acne. The more you touch the infected area it will get more irritated and spread through contact.
People who forget to remove their makeup before sleeping, have oily skin, and live in an area with high air pollution have more chances of getting bacterial acne. For the formation of pimples, your pores need to be clogged with bacteria that further cause inflammation and pus.
The simplest way to avoid bacterial acne is to ensure that they wash their face in both morning and evening and do not use ingredients that would clog their pores.
Difference Between Hormonal And Bacterial Acne
Without the help of bacteria, hormonal acne cannot spread extensively; thus, they go hand in hand. Yet in some cases, medications for hormonal acne fail and can be treated with only topicals used for bacterial acne. Therefore, there must be some basis to differentiate between hormonal and bacterial acne.
As you have read above, hormonal acne requires oral medication as well as topicals, whereas bacterial acne requires only topicals. But if your acne does not grow other than when you have hormonal disbalance, then it is hormonal acne. Otherwise, it is bacterial acne and needs immediate action.
Bacterial acne can grow at an alarming rate if not treated early and leave scars and dark patches. Irrelevant whether the trigger was hormonal or not, one must not leave the treatment for bacterial acne.
Even if the treatment for the bacteria doesn’t work that well, it will work well in containing and decreasing the growth of the pimples. If not treated in time, one can experience Cystic acne, Cutibactrium acnes, Staphylococcus epidermidis, and so on.
How To Treat Hormonal And Bacterial Acne?
You need to change your habits and lifestyle to treat acne. There can be a long list of practices to avoid, but to check it yourself, you can stop each habit for some time to know whether it’s harmful.
A few habits you should avoid are touching your face, not cleaning your mobile phone screen regularly, not having proper meals, missing breakfast or dinner, not participating in physical activities, and so on.
To treat hormonal acne, you first need to know the severity of your skin condition and stick to what your dermatologist previously prescribed or would prescribe.
Other than that, there are elementary treatments such as the use of a topical cream, topical retinoid or topical antibiotic, isotretinoin, and for worse conditions, you would need steroid injections.
Before taking medication that isn’t topical or available over the counter, you should contact a dermatologist for better screening of your skin condition.
A gentle face wash and over-the-counter creams for treating bacterial acne usually work well. But if you have moderate to severe acne, which is forming cysts, you should immediately contact a dermatologist as soon as possible.
In the meantime, or if you suspect you have bacterial pimples, you should avoid irritating your skin and prevent sun damage as much as possible.
Conclusion
More than 80% of people in this world have experienced some acne or the other. Hormonal and bacterial acne is the most widespread out of all the different types. You can successfully avoid such acne by maintaining a basic skincare regime targeting your skin issues.
But irrelevant of your skincare, if your acne keeps growing, you should contact a dermatologist and form a proper treatment routine. In the end, no one knows your skin better than a dermatologist, but you should know the difference between hormonal and bacterial acne in case of doubt about the treatment.
