Friday, April 20, 2012

After I pluck out ingrown hairs and release puss from my face, I get these little sores.?

What do I do to treat the sores?



It seems that when I put my acne medication on, it just makes the sores worse. Polysporin seems helps a little, but very very slowly.



After I pluck out ingrown hairs and release puss from my face, I get these little sores.?

Hello,



'Ingrown hairs' and 'acne' are different problems.



Proper 'ingrowing hairs' tends to affect men with curly hair, - their beard hair is also curly, so it curls around and back into the skin instead of straight out onto the face. The re-entering hair causes a pustule. If you pick at a pustule with a (sterile) pin, you can often hook out a tiny coil of hair from beneath the skin. The medical name for this condition is "pseudo-folliculitis barbae" (pronounced syood'-o foll-ikk-u-lye' -tis bar'-bee) (sorry about this name lol). PFB for short.



The pustules of ingrowing hairs are not primarily infectious, - the infection comes after the irritation caused by the ingrowing hair. Pulling the whole hair out cures it temporarily, until the hair regrows again, although you get a small raw area until it heals, (like you have found).



PFB is *different* from straight "folliculitis barbae" or "shaving rash," which *is* primarily infectious, and which caused by staphylococci and other such germs. Unfortunately you will find on the Web, that even purported 'experts' confuse these two, - take care.



It is a difficult condition to cure. Theoretically, the best treatment would be to kill off each individual in-growing hair with electrolysis, depilation, or laser treatment, However, in practice the results are not so good, because there are so many hairs which need treating, and because the electrolysis needle cannot always find its way straight to the bottom of a curly hair follicle, so it fails to kill the root of the hair.



IMO the most effective treatment is to make it a rule from now on, to use a blade razor and always shave 'with' the direction of the hair growth. Never draw the blade 'against the grain.' You can find out what your grain is, by stroking your beard area skin from different directions. Smooth is 'with' the grain, and rough is 'against' the grain.



Just for completeness, some acne treatments which treat infection (antibiotics like Polysporin) or which treat inflammation (steroids), will help temporarily.



Hope this is of some help. There's a further reference below. Belliger (retired UK GP)



After I pluck out ingrown hairs and release puss from my face, I get these little sores.?

Skin takes time to heal. When you pop pimples or dig out ingrown hairs, you damage the skin. It takes time for the cells to regrow. Acne medication is not the thing to use, because you are not trying to use chemicals to solve the problem. You have created a new problem, and have to use a new solution. Topical antibiotics are the best thing for small cuts in the skin.

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