Acne Cyst Treatment
An acne cyst is not a pretty sight. Cysts do not look like whiteheads or blackheads and they don’t feel like them either. Acne cysts are bumps of tissue that are filled with sebum (the oily material your sebaceous skin glands create every day) along with pus or simple fluid. They have no “head” per see and they feel as if they have a semi-solid center.
They’re not usually painful to the touch but it’s not unusual for an individual cyst to be painful either. They mostly look and feel smooth on the surface, large and red. And, unfortunately for most acne sufferers, they are very difficult to get rid of.
Acne cysts are considered a more severe form of acne. They can appear on their own or they can be part of a more general acne breakout. Plus, they can appear on the skin anywhere simple acne pimples can appear.
Hormonal acne itself is caused by an excessive amount of sebum secretion by the sebaceous glands coupled with the inability for the skin to cast off dead skin cells. When the two come together in the same pore, a plug develops that turns into an acne pimple. Acne breakouts then are simply multiple occurrences of these plugs growing into exposed acne. Acne cysts however are bit more.
You see, your skin is also home to a lot of relatively harmless bacteria. Sometimes though bacteria find their way into one of these mixtures of sebum and dead skin cells and begin to feed. They grow and inflame the surrounding area. That catches the attention of your body’s immune system which attacks the bacteria and effectively creates a closed pouch around it to seal it off from the rest of the body. This is the acne cyst.
Cystic acne treatment is a little different than normal blackheads or whiteheads. In the first place, while you can sometimes get away with “popping a pimple,” squeezing or trying to pop an acne cyst will do no real good and can end up doing a lot of harm. If you do break open the cyst you’ll create a break in real skin that has to heal. Over time, these breaks can cause acne scarring that can stay with you for a long, long time – even the rest of your life. Secondly, breaking open a cyst can also release or force some of the infectious fluid deeper into your skin where it can cause even deeper, harder to reach cysts, and even more scarring. So definitely no squeezing.
What’s left to do really boils down to a series of acne spot treatments. Thoroughly cleansing the skin surface (gently) around the cyst is the way to start. Also, Icing the surface of a cyst can reduce its swelling somewhat and inhibit its growth. Following that up with a topical application of a Benzoyl Peroxide-based over-the-counter acne treatment will accomplish about as much as any acne cyst home treatment can accomplish.
Doing this multiple times a day can shrink and eliminate the cyst all together. It may still take days for it to go away, but it would take much longer without a focused approach.
If an at-home regimen doesn’t seem strong enough for you then you need to seek professional help. Dermatologists have different options and there is an acne cyst treatment that can work for you. It can be anything from oral or topical antibiotics to Cortisone shots into the cyst itself. If you’ve been prone to multiple acne cyst breakouts, you may want to begin battling back by first going to a dermatologist you trust.
There is no true acne cyst cure but there are acne cyst treatments. And by taking the disciplined approach of improving your hygiene, eating habits, resting, and sleeping habits, along with finding the right acne products that work for your skin, you can get a real edge on acne breakouts in general and acne cysts in particular. Remember, cysts can’t form if the skin is clean and unclogged. So stay disciplined and positive, you can win this battle.
2 Responses
Some very good advice here. It is absolutely best not to pick at or squeeze pimples. Not only does this make matters worse, it can scar the skin. A pimple with a yellow head can be very tempting to pick because not only is it unattractive, but there is a lot of pressure that is released when popped so often times it does feel better. Just not a good thing to do.
[...] These plugs can also provide a breeding ground for bacteria (Propionibacterium acnes) and when that happens they become inflamed and grow even larger until they tear the follicle walls creating an acute form of acne known as cystic acne. [...]