In medical sciences, Subclinical Acne is a term related to dermatology that refers to small, painless, and superficial acne. It usually appears below the skin, which has not yet developed into an open pimple. When dirt, bacteria, oil, or dead skin gets trapped in pores beneath the skin, sub-clinical acne appears red or flesh-colored bumps.
It is also known as comedonal acne. It usually appears on the forehead and doesn’t lead to skin discoloration. Commonly, a subclinical disease is the early stage of acne where no recognizable signs or symptoms of the disease have presented themselves.
A breakout like this can indicate that your skin doesn’t feel too great. Sub-clinical acne is not detectable and may look less inflammatory, but the cause is the same. Since it has not yet gotten through the skin, most sub-clinical skin breakouts are closed comedones or closed pimples.
A whitehead is a sort of sub-clinical skin inflammation since a dainty layer of skin is present on its surface. Notwithstanding, a blackhead is viewed as an open comedones, as it is available to the air. Blackheads get their dim shading because a layer of skin does not cloud the soil and dead skin cells caught in the pore.
What causes Sub-Clinical Acne?
Several factors can lead to sub-clinical acne (clogged pores can happen for various reasons), but here are a few of the most common ones. There are many triggers for sub-clinical acne, just like clinical acne.
Unhygienic Conditions:
When sweat and bacteria from your workout or the daily routine settle into your pores, it can eventually clog them and lead to breakouts. Since most of the biological reactions that trigger acne happen underneath the skin, not on the surface, the cleanliness of your skin has no bearing on acne.
Washing your face more than twice a day will aggravate your condition. Sub-clinical acne can occur when you don’t shower after working out or when you don’t wash your face before bed.
Genetics:
Furthermore, your genetic makeup could contribute to your comedonal, sub-clinical acne: “Oily skin and acne-prone skin tend to run in families,” Chang says. You can’t stop your genetics, but you can develop treatment and prevention strategies to help ward them off.
You may have a genetic tendency to overproduce dead skin cells and then shed them in a way that clogs your pores. When this leads to acne breakouts, you can think of it as genetic acne.
Hormones:
Hormonal imbalances are one reason for the over activation of sebum glands. In general, younger people produce more sebum, contributing to more oil accumulation on their faces.
Stress triggers the release of hormones such as cortisol, adrenal androgens, neuropeptides, and cytokines that lead to sebaceous gland inflammation. These hormones can cause inflammation and histamine release, and those two things can cause acne.
Diet:
If you consume dairy products or processed foods high in sugar and carbs regularly, you might invite breakouts of any kind, not just sub-clinical acne. Therefore, if you notice that your skin is producing more skin-colored bumps than usual or has developed a breakout, make sure you fix the problem right away.
It’s important to evaluate your diet since what you eat internally can affect your skin. The consumption of foods with a high glycemic index/glycemic load (GL) tends to elevate blood glucose levels and result in hyperinsulinemia, which leads to unregulated tissue growth, enhances the production of androgen, development of acne.
Skincare Products:
Buying beauty products designed to improve your complexion may not be effective for everyone who uses them. To prevent breakouts caused by by-products, you may look for non-comedogenic products.
Board-certified dermatologist Jennifer Herrmann, M.D., tells mbg about closed comedones: “Often oily products will cause or worsen this type of acne.” This includes skincare and makeup, and hair care products, so anything that regularly comes into contact with your skin may play a role.
How to treat Sub-Clinical Acne?
It’s important to treat subclinical acne as early as possible to progress into inflammatory pustules. Additionally, clusters of comedones can appear bumpy and uneven that eventually lead to inflammation. Many treatments for subclinical acne target the cause of clogged pores.
They clear out dead skin, target bacteria, and reduce oil production to unclog pores. It’s very similar to how acne is treated in controlling oil production and increasing skin cell turnover, even though there’s a wide range of interpretations in terms of what subclinical acne is and how to treat it.
Salicylic acid:
It is recommended to incorporate a salicylic acid cleanser into your skincare routine to prevent subclinical acne. Salicylic acid is a beta-hydroxy acid (oil-Soluble) that can penetrate deep inside pores to remove excess oils, and impurities exfoliate the surface of the skin and penetrate the pores to eliminate oil, thus preventing pores from becoming clogged and removing ones already formed”.
Apply the BHA as a cleanser, mask, or leave-on treatment, but make sure not to over-exfoliate. You can use a 1-2% salicylic acid cleanser to gently exfoliate your face, remove dead skin cells, and clear your pores.
Applying Retinoids:
Retinoids are the first-line treatment for a wide range of skin breakouts, both non-inflammatory and provocative. Retinoids, as adapalene, standardize skin cell turnover to diminish obstructed pores and lessen aggravation.
Adapalene, explicitly, can be utilized to deal with both non-provocative skins break out like comedones and blackheads and inflammatory skin break out like pimples and blisters.
In addition to preventing and treating clogged pores, topical retinoids have comedolytic effects. Moreover, they increase the turnover of skin cells and prevent debris keratin from clumping together because they increase cell turnover. As a spot treatment for acne, retinoid gels containing retinol or adapalene remove dead skin cells from pores and reduce inflammation.
Use non-comedogenic products:
Having obstructed pores is the main cause of sub-clinical acne; therefore, you should avoid pore-clogging ingredients. But every person’s skin is unique, so some formulas you may love may cause congestion for you.
If you don’t already know what products to avoid, it might take a bit of detective work to figure it out, but don’t forget about makeup and hair care products, as well.
Try Benzoyl Peroxide:
In addition to killing bacteria and pore-clogging particles, benzoyl peroxide can also help dissolve dead skin cells. That’s like a one-two punch for acne types such as inflammatory Acne and comedonal Acne, for instance, blackheads or subclinical acne. Bacteria-clogging pores can be eliminated with benzoyl peroxide washes, increasing cell turnover and eliminating dead skin cells.
Natural Remedies:
There are also some effective natural remedies for subclinical acne that you should try:
- Green tea: Epigallocatechin gallate, which is found in green tea, may help to reduce acne lesions on the face.
- Tea tree oil: By killing harmful bacteria, tea tree oil can reduce the appearance of subclinical acne lesions when properly diluted.
- Turmeric: Turmeric contains the antioxidant curcumin, which can clear people’s pores with subclinical acne.
- Aloe Vera: Retinoid creams for acne can be made more effective by adding aloe vera to the formulations, which will lessen the side effects of
- Propolis: A propolis-containing honey is antibacterial and anti-inflammatory, which can help to reduce acne-causing bacteria and the number of lesions.
- Cannabinoids: Cannabidiol (CBD) extracted from marijuana, such as in cannabidiol oil, may reduce acne inflammation by decreasing the amount of sebum in the skin.
How to prevent subclinical acne?
There are several ways by which we can prevent ourselves from getting subclinical acne. A few of them are:
- Wash your face twice a day.
- Moisturize your skin most time of the
- Wear sunscreen whenever going
- Follow a low glycaemic index
- Reduce your
Conclusion:
Subclinical skin breaks out is certifiably not a genuine clinical definition yet alludes to skin break out that isn’t dynamic or apparent. This kind of skin breakout is, for the most part, alluded to as a ‘microcomedone’ which is the start of a skin inflammation injury life cycle.
References:
- https://www.forhers.com/blog/subclinical-acne-causes-treatment-options retrieved on February 11, 2022.
- https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/subclinical-acne retrieved on February 11, 2022.
- https://www.healthline.com/health/skin/subclinical-acne retrieved on February 11, 2022.
- https://www.tiege.com/blogs/news/subclinical-acne-definition-causes-and-how-to-treat
- https://dermcollective.com/subclinical-acne/ retrieved on February 11, 2022.
- https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/acne/derm-treat/treat retrieved on February 11, 2022.
- https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/12233-acne retrieved on February 11, 2022.
