What's in the bump?

Pseudofolliculitis barbae (PFB) is known by many names; razor bumps, barber’s itch, shaving bumps, etc, but at the end of the day, it is a bump formed by some kind of lesion of the skin.  The question is, what’s in the bump?

The bump is formed in the first place by what is known as the ‘inflammation reaction’.  This usually happens when the hair is shaved very close to the skin or it is plucked.  It also is more common with curly hair where it curls back into the skin and doesn’t exit the skin from the follicle.  The tip of the growing hair going into the skin triggers the body’s defences to think it is a foreign object in the skin, and recruits the body’s response by sending the necessary agents to fight the foreign object.  This is what causes the inflammation.

The inflamed follicular area can then be infected by various bacteria or viruses.  The most common bacterium that causes PFB is Staphylococcus Aureus, which is a common bacterium that infects the human skin.  Because it is present in abundance on the skin, re-infection is very common with PFB and can make treatment frustrating – which is why the condition keeps coming back!

So what’s actually in the bump?  The following are what you can expect to find if you analyse the contents of an infected razor bump or  Pseudofolliculitis barbae

-          Hiar
-          Pus
-          Bacteria or Viruses or both
-          Plasma
-          Leukocytes
-          Scar tissue

Hope you found that useful information and thanks for reading

Josh