Have you ever seen a slew of tiny and pesky white bumps on your face or other people’s? They’re tiny white bumps that appear on your nose, chin, cheeks, and other areas on your body that are painless even when you give them a squeeze. Nothing happens when your give them a squeeze — no pain, no pus, and no blood.
You likely have milia, a skin condition that’s often mistaken for whiteheads. Also known as ‘milk spots’, milia are keratin-filled cysts that form just under the skin, looking like white or yellowish bumps on the surface. They are commonly associated with newborn babies, but occur in children and adults, too.
When you do see them, resist the urge to try removing them.
Milium (singular form of the word) happens when a plug of dead skin cells, called keratin, gets trapped beneath the skin’s surface and form small, hard cysts. Milia cysts occur more commonly among babies because their skin is still learning to exfoliate, or slough off dead skin cells, on its own.
Milia can occur anywhere most especially on the face, commonly around the eyelids and cheeks. They can also appear on the genitals. The vast majority of milia cases can pop up for no apparent reason, despite having a clear skin.
Other times, it can be chalked up to:
The cause of milia in newborns is unknown, and doesn’t cause inflammation or swelling unlike baby acne. Infants who have milia are usually born with it,
Milia are small, round little bump-like cysts found under the skin. They look a bit like whiteheads but unlike acne are not surrounded by redness. They are usually 1 to 2 millimeters (mm) in size.
Milia are completely benign. You are likely to get them in multiples.
Milia types fall into primary or secondary categories.
Here are the types of milia:
Neonatal milia are considered primary milia. They develop in newborns and clear within a few weeks. Cysts are typically seen on the nose, inside the mouth, scalp, and upper torso.
Rare genetic disorders that affect the skin can lead to juvenile milia like nevoid basal cell carcinoma syndrome (NBCCS), pachyonychia congenital, Gardner’s syndrome, and Bazex-Dupré-Christol syndrome.
This condition is commonly associated with genetic or autoimmune skin disorders like discoid lupus or lichen planus. The cysts can be several centimeters in diameter and are clumped together in a broad, flat patch raised above the surrounding skin.
Milia en plaque can affect children and adults, particularly middle-aged women. This patch or plaque often has a clear and defined border.
This type of milia consists of numerous itchy bumps that can appear on the face, upper arms, and torso. They appear in the same area over several weeks or months.
They are considered secondary milia. Traumatic milia occur where there is injury to the skin like severe burns, allergic reaction, excessive exposure to sunlight, and rashes. The cysts may become irritated, making them red along the edges and white in the center.
The use of steroid creams and certain topical medications can lead to milia. If you have milia-prone skin, avoid ingredients like liquid paraffin, liquid petroleum, paraffin oil, paraffinum liquidum, petrolatum liquid, petroleum oil, and lanolin.
Milia have a characteristic appearance. Your doctor will examine your skin to determine if you have milia based on the appearance of the cysts. On occasion, a skin biopsy may be performed.
Can we prevent milia? The short answer is, sadly, not really. If you are prone to getting milia, there is no true way to permanently prevent them from forming.
However, when milia are associated with other skin conditions or injuries, swift treatment may keep them from appearing.
Good skin care should be practiced; prevention, after all, is better than cure. Here are some of the skin care tips you can try:
Alternatively, you can also adopt lifestyle changes that can help prevent milia. Limit your intake of cholesterol-rich foods like meat, eggs, etc and incorporate vitamin D supplementation.
In most cases, milia will disappear on their own within a few months. If they persist and cause discomfort, there are treatments that can be effective in eliminating them.
They include:
Apart from the causes listed above that are the most likely medical approximations, there are no other possible reasons for having milia. Its occurrence is really a sort of dermatological enigma in most cases.
The good thing is that they come and go pretty quickly. They are also painless and don’t cause inflammation.
Don’t ever try popping or squeezing a milium. It is not an acne pimple but rather a tiny cyst. Its contents are not fluid like the contents of a pustule. This isn’t to say that it’s okay to pick your pustules either, but the little white lump that makes up a milium is very hard, almost like a grain of sand.
Because milia form under a thin layer of skin and not in the pore like acne blemishes do, there is no opening in the skin by which the plug could escape anyway. Squeezing at milia will just give you a tender, red spot, and quite possibly damaged skin. And milia will still be there.
Unlike severe acne cases, milia don’t cause long-term problems. In newborns, the cysts usually go away within a few weeks after birth. While the process might take longer in older children and adults, milia aren’t considered harmful.
Because milia are just a cosmetic issue the choice to treat them or not is up to you. Treatment isn’t necessary and they can and do go away all on their own over time.
However, if you’re not 100% sure it’s milia, you may want to have your bumps checked out by your physician. They will be able to give you a proper diagnosis and alert you if it’s an occurrence of another skin condition.
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