These stupid bumps on my arm look like permanent goose bumps!! What gives?!

When you run your fingers over the back of your arms (or legs) do you feel a bunch of little bumps that wont go away? Well you probably have a very common and genetic disorder called Keratosis Pilaris (KP). What you're feeling is extra keratin around your hair follicles and its often associated with other conditions of dry skin such as eczema. Most people don't even know that this condition has a medical designation with a treatment!

This is a very common disorder that affects between 50-80% of young people and will often get better as we get older. But some people will have it throughout their lives and in general it can also get worse during the winter months as our skin tends to get dryer.

This disorder is not serious at all, its just cosmetically displeasing and annoying.

There is no cure for KP and no universally effective treatment but there are a bunch of different over-the-counter treatments available to help smooth out and improve the KP.
The first thing you want to do is just make sure you're keeping your skin nice and hydrated. Try to use mild soaps in the shower (I recommend Dove, Caress, Cetaphil) and taking luke-warm short showers. The best time to apply lotions and creams are right after you get out of the shower (I really like Lubriderm and CeraVe).
The second thing is to try an over-the-counter (OTC) cream with an ingredient called lactic acid. There a couple creams that used to be prescription but are now available OTC called AmLactin and Lac-Hydrin. Try applying either one of these creams on the affected area twice a day.
Another OTC cream you can try is something with urea in it such as Carmol 10, Carmol 20, Carmol 40 or Urix 40. Again, put these creams on twice a day. You can also try salicylic acid creams such as Salex.

As you can see, there are a lot of different options and I would just try each one out to see which one works best for me.

For cases of KP that are not improving with moisturizing and the lotions mentioned above, the dermatologist can prescribe a moderate steroid cream such as Triamcinolone cream to apply twice a day for about 2 weeks at a time. They can also prescribe something called a retinoid to help the skin slough off  and exfoliate the skin such as Retin-A, Differin, or Tazarac.

So as you can see there are so many different treatment options available for KP, but the key thing is to try and stay moisturized and apply a nice lotion every day. I also recommend gentle exfoliation with a loofah in the shower. But the good news is that most of the time the KP will eventually just go away as we get older (woohoo finally something GOOD about getting older!).

Let me know what treatments work for you! I'd love to hear it!