Featuring Dr. Jan Dank, MD
Video Title: Acne in Teenagers Verses Adults
Duration: 2 minutes, 27 seconds        

Acne is an inflammatory condition of the skin, and it affects the skin that has oil glands.  

Oil glands are distributed on the face, the neck, the chest, the bank, and the shoulders. So those are the areas that you’ll get acne. What happens is that under hormonal influence there is a plugging up of these hair follicles and the oil gland, and there’s a plug that forms at the opening.  

And behind that, bacteria grow and cause the inflammation. The plug is called a comedone, which most people will call a blackhead or a whitehead – and the inflammation behind it, if it’s at the surface, will be a pimple or a zit, which we call an inflammatory papule or a pustule.  

And if it’s deep in the skin, it’s much more painful, larger, lasts longer, and those are the painful nodules and cysts that are deep down and probably the worst type of acne.  

While people often think of teenagers being the ones affected with acne, and it’s true – probably the majority of people in their teenaged years are going to have some amount of acne – but acne affects adults as well and can last well into adult life into people’s 30s or 40s.  

There are some people who don’t get acne as teenagers and have it start in their 20s and 30s and are quite surprised when they escaped acne as teens and see it show up when they’re 25.  

So teenage acne tends to run a shorter course; it tends to be more inflammatory and more noticeable but over with in fewer number of years. Whereas, the adults who are unfortunate to have acne start in their 20s and 30s usually go for longer; although, the number of pimples and the severity is less.  

There is a tremendous spectrum of severity in acne. While putting up with a few pimples or zits every now and again is something most of us do even if we’ve never had severe acne, when it’s more severe, it affects your sense of person, it affects your sense of interacting with other people.  

It’s painful and it’s scarring, and it’s a treatable condition, and it’s not something that you should or need to put up with.    

Video shot in conjunction with Dr Dank and //www.dlcnw.com/

Presenter: Dr. Jan Peter Dank, Dermatologist, Bellingham, WA

Local Practitioners: Dermatologist