The vitamin story of the next decade will be vitamin D. As we learn more about this fascinating prohormone, we realize how important it is to maintaining health and preventing disease. Read more…
Have you ever looked in the mirror and noticed how much you’re starting to look like your mother or father? It happens to all of us: much of aging is determined by the genes we inherited from our parents. Read more…
Ever notice brown spots on your skin after a rash or an injury? Brown spots on your skin are often blamed on the sun, but any damage to your skin can result in skin spots.
Skin color is caused by pigment-producing cells called melanocytes. Anything that excites these cells will cause them to release brown pigment into your skin. Sun causes them to release pigment, but so can an infection, a rash, and even acne.
When you have an infection, injury or a rash, inflammation develops to protect your skin from harm and to repair damage. This inflammation is apparent as redness, scaling, swelling, pus, pain, or even itching. Inflammation triggers the melanocytes to make brown pigment which is dispersed and sinks into the deep layers of your skin.
Long after the inflammation is gone, the pigment remains and the brown spots stay visible. People with darker skin tones release more pigment when their skin is inflamed, which leads to more noticeable brown skin spots.
Brown spots such as these are called post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation because they appear after inflammation resolves. Unfortunately, once that pigment is deposited in the skin, it is very slow to fade. Over-the-counter bleaching creams such as hydroquinone 2% can lighten brown skin when used for weeks to months. More potent prescription creams such as Tri-Luma® can remove brown spots, but are expensive and generally are not covered by health insurance.
It is much easier to prevent than to remove brown skin spots:
Photo: Pat Hensen
Dear Dr. Benabio,
OMG, my face is a disaster! My acne is worse than ever. PLZ help me!
Desperately,
Your Patient
Many of my patients email me; this is the most common email I am getting this week. Why is everyone’s acne flaring up all of a sudden? It’s because of this simple formula: [High School Stress + Hormones = Acne].
Acne results when your pores clog, trapping sebaceous oils and bacteria deep in the skin. When you’re under stress, your body releases cortisol, a hormone that helps you stay alive in life or death situations. High school, however stressful, is not usually life or death, but your body doesn’t know that, and it reacts as if it were.
Two side effects of increased cortisol are increased sebaceous oil production and increased inflammation in your skin. The result: big, red pimples in the middle of your face that make you now wish you were dead.
If you have painful, cystic acne bumps, then your dermatologist can inject the worst ones with steroids to reduce the inflammation and to flatten them out quickly — “Nurse! Give me a syringe with Kenalog. Stat!” (Who said I don’t do emergencies?) Steroid injections can, however, cause atrophy or dimpling in your skin, which can last for months — much longer than the original pimple.
Remember that school is stressful, so eat well, sleep well (preferably not in calculus class), and exercise regularly. These will decrease your stress hormones and help keep you acne free.
Disclaimer: I did not receive any free products or reimbursement from any products mentioned in this post; these are my unbiased suggestions.
Photo: John Steven Fernandez
I’ve always loved September. I loved the crispness in the air, the sounds of a football game, the feel of brand new textbooks. OK, so I was kind of a nerd. But school was easier when I was young. For one thing, there were no MRSA infections to worry about.
MRSA is a staph bacteria that is resistant to antibiotics. The bacteria infects you when your skin’s protective barrier is disrupted by small scrapes or other injuries. Once it has a foothold, it can spread aggressively leading to painful, even dangerous infections.
School-age athletes are particularly vulnerable to MRSA because the bacteria likes to spread in locker rooms and on contaminated sports equipment (but not on chemistry flasks, so I guess I would have been safe).
Because the bacteria is resistant to many antibiotics, it is difficult to treat. In rare cases, it can be life threatening, defying all medical therapies.
One of the ways we can reduce the risk of drug resistant bacteria like MRSA is to reduce our use of antibiotics. Researchers at the University of Wales Institute have been working on this problem and looked at an old home remedy to treat infection: honey. Honey has natural antibacterial properties and has been used to aid in wound healing. But, they asked, how would honey fare against MRSA, the staph superbug?
They found that in the laboratory, manuka honey does kill MRSA bacteria. If it turns out that it also works when applied to real patients, then we might be able to use medicinal honey to treat minor cuts and abrasions or to treat superficial staph infections without resorting to antibiotics. However, don’t try try this at home, as yet, this is not yet an approved, safe treatment for staph infections.
Staph infections, especially MRSA infections, can be serious. If you suspect that you or your child has a staph infection, then see a physician.
