Living With Skin Conditions

193 Pages·2010·15.79 MB·English

by  Sarah L., M.d. Chamlin, E. A. Tremblay

LIVING
with
SKIN
CONDITIONS
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Also in the
Teen’s Guides series
Living with Alcoholism and Drug Addiction
Living with Allergies
Living with Anxiety Disorders
Living with Asthma
Living with Cancer
Living with Depression
Living with Diabetes
Living with Eating Disorders
Living with Obesity
Living with Peer Pressure and Bullying
Living with Sexually Transmitted Diseases
Living with Skin Conditions
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LIVING
with
SKIN
CONDITIONS
Sarah L. Chamlin, M.D.
with E. A. Tremblay
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Living with Skin Conditions
Copyright © 2010 by Sarah L. Chamlin, M.D.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission
in writing from the publisher. For information contact:
Facts On File, Inc.
An imprint of Infobase Publishing, Inc.
132 West 31st Street
New York NY 10001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chamlin, Sarah L.
Living with skin conditions / by Sarah L. Chamlin, with E. A. Tremblay.
p. cm. — (Teen’s guides)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8160-7911-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8160-7911-0 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4381-3075-0 (e-book)
1. Skin—Care and hygiene. 2. Skin—Diseases. I. Tremblay, E. A. II. Title.
RL87.C43 2010
616.5—dc22 2009025496
Facts On File books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk
quantities for businesses, associations, institutions, or sales promotions. Please call
our Special Sales Department in New York at [phone] or [phone].
You can fnd Facts On File on the World Wide Web at http://www.factsonfle.com
Excerpts included herewith have been reprinted by permission of the copyright
holders; the author has made every effort to contact copyright holders. The
publishers will be glad to rectify, in future editions, any errors or omissions
brought to their notice.
Text design by Annie O’Donnell
Composition by Hermitage Publishing Services
Cover printed by Art Print, Taylor, Pa.
Book printed and bound by Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group, York, Pa.
Date printed: April, 2010
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
CONTENTS
■ ■ 1 You and the Skin You’re In 1
■ ■ 2 A Personal Plan to Deal with Acne 14
■ ■ 3 The Sun and Your Skin 36
■ ■ 4 Cuts, Burns, and Other Things That Hurt 54
■ ■ 5 Bites, Stings, and Rashes 76
■ ■ 6 Chronic Conditions: Skin Problems That
Don’t Go Away 103
■ ■ 7 Are You Contagious? 116
■ ■ 8 Your Hair and You 129
■ ■ 9 Helping Others Cope with Skin Conditions 147
■ ■ 10 Paying for Care 155
Appendix: Helpful Associations and Programs
for Skin Conditions 162
Glossary 165
Read More About It 178
Index 180
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vi+179_TG-SkinCond.indd vi 3/18/10 11:49:23 AM
1
1
You and the Skin You’re In
Have you ever had one of those days? The kind of day
when you can’t fi nd your iPOD; you’re running late for school, your
mom is nagging you to eat breakfast, and to top it all off, a huge red
pimple that appeared in the middle of the night is sitting right in
the center of your forehead? Of course, you can survive a few hours
without listening to your latest downloads, calm your mother down
HHby grabbing an apple, and bring a note to the school offi ce for being
late. But you really could have done without the unwanted visitor on
your face. What’s up with that, anyway? In fact, what’s up with your
skin in general? Why won’t it behave?
WHAT YOU’RE ALL WRAPPED UP IN
Skin is more than simply the packaging you came in. It’s an organ,
just like your lungs, heart, and brain. All organs have a few things
in common. All organs are made of different kinds of tissue. The
skin has three kinds of tissue: epithelial (the lining), connective,
and nerve. Every organ type is differentiated, which means it has its
own unique shape and structure. Also, organs are specialized, which
means they have their own particular jobs to do to help keep you
alive and healthy. Finally, every organ is part of a system. Systems are
families in which two or more organs work together toward a com-
mon goal. For example, your brain and nerves belong to your nervous
system; your stomach, intestines, and several others to the digestive
1
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2 Living with Skin Conditions
system; and your heart and blood vessels to the circulatory system.
So what about the skin?
YOUR BUILT-IN SECURITY SYSTEM
Your skin is the largest organ in the integumentary system, which also
includes your hair, fi ngernails, toenails, tooth enamel, oil glands, and
sweat glands. All of these work together to keep everything inside of
you safe, snug, and warm and to warn you when anything threatens
that inner security. Here is how your skin contributes.
It keeps your temperature steady. Your body can overheat for
many reasons, including exercise, a warm environment, or infection.
Your skin cools things off by sweating, which moves the heat out,
and evaporation, which sends the moisture into the air. On the other
hand, if you start to get too cold, your skin helps hold the heat inside
of you and keeps itself warm by circulating more blood close to its
surface.
It protects you. It’s important to keep the world outside of you
separate from the one inside of you, and that’s exactly the service
your skin provides. It acts as a protective covering that keeps all of
your other organ systems safe from germs, dirt, chemicals, sunlight,
and everything else in the environment that can be harmful.
It allows you to feel things. The nerve endings in your skin allow
you to feel texture, pressure, heat, cold, and pain. Of course, it would
be nice to skip the pain part, but that’s one important way your body
has of warning you that you’re in danger. If something is burning
your skin, for example, you need to know this immediately, so that
you can move away from the heat.
It gets rid of what you don’t need. Sweating does more than
move heat out of your body. It can get rid of excess salt, chemicals,
and toxins that you’re better off without.
It alerts your immune system. When anything manages to get
past your skin barrier—such as germs that enter through a cut or
other wound—little messengers called Langerhans cells attach to the
invader and send signals to your immune system that say, “Come and
get this guy!” These invaders, also called antigens, are troublemakers,
and the immune system does its best to get rid of them quickly.
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You and the Skin You’re In 3
Skin Facts: Did You Know?
The skin is the largest organ in your body. A full-grown adult’s skin can
weigh as much as six pounds and contain 10 percent of the body’s
blood supply.
It makes vitamin D. One way people get vitamin D, which helps
you absorb calcium from your food, is through sunlight. Sunlight con-
tains ultraviolet rays, which activate a form of vitamin D, called D3,
in blood that passes close to the surface of your skin.
IT’S NOT AS SIMPLE AS YOU MIGHT THINK
Although your skin looks like a single sheet of material that covers
you all over, it actually has a pretty amazing and complex structure.
First of all, everyone has two types of skin—thin and hairy, and thick
and hairless. The second type covers parts of your body that are often
in contact with other surfaces, such as the palms of your hands and
the soles of your feet. You don’t want hair growing in those places, as
they’re tough and thick and generally exposed to a lot of rubbing and
friction. Everywhere else, you’re covered by the fi rst type. On average,
your skin is two millimeters thick—about as thick as a penny—but its
thickness varies by location.
Regardless of type, your skin comes in layers. The protective top
layer is the epidermis. It contains cells called melanocytes that give
skin its color. The epidermis is constantly manufacturing fresh new
cells, which, over a period of two to four weeks, make their way to
the surface. A skin cell, however, has a brief life span. It will die just
before it reaches the surface—which means that the skin you can see
is really a thin layer of dead cells.
The second layer, the dermis, contains sensory nerves, sebaceous
(oil) glands, sweat glands, and lots of blood vessels. It also contains
two proteins, collagen and elastin, which keep your skin smooth,
plump, and fl exible. As you grow older, your supplies of collagen and
elastin diminish. As a result, wrinkles form and your skin doesn’t
snap back into place as well after it’s been stretched.
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