Healthy Live Everyday

BOILS AND CARBUNCLES (furuncles)
An inflamed, infected lump on and under the skin, boils and carbuncles are results of infection from the ever-present staph germ, which lies in wait on the skin to take advantage of lowered resistance and weakness.

A boil is a local skin infection based in a hair root, usually found in the neck but also on the face, armpits, back, and buttocks. A carbuncle is a close collection of boils filled with pus, with the communicating channels several inches across.

The Danger: Carbuncles can be dangerous to life by infecting the bloodstream with staph germs and their toxins; they can also cause infection of the bone (osteomyelitis). Diabetic and debilitated people seem to be more prone and are far more seriously affected. Boils inside the nose or in the central facial area are particularly hazardous, since they can cause meningitis as well as blood poisoning.

Symptoms: The inflamed area is hard, dark red, swollen, hot, tender, and quite painful. Eventually, if unassisted, the carbuncle will come to a head and break, exuding pus. Additional symptoms are a high fever and occasionally prostration from toxicity in the blood.

Treatment: The staph germ must be identified in a lab so that the resistant germ can be destroyed with a very specific antibiotic. All carbuncles must be treated by a physician. This is no disease to ignore or self-treat.

A single boil can be treated by intermittent moist heat and antibiotic ointment. But when it is in the nose or on the face it will also require systemic antibiotic pills as well as very careful direct treatment.

Usually the physician will incise the carbuncle to hasten the drainage of staph pus, but the incision must be carefully and shallowly made to prevent the infection from going deeper into the tissues. The carbuncle and the area around it should be washed with an antibacterial soap and then rubbed with a 70 percent solution of alcohol to kill off any remaining bacteria, thus preventing new outbreaks from forming nearby.

Also about skin diseases:

Vitilogo and Baldness

ERYSIPELAS

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Bacterial Skin Diseases: ERYSIPELAS (St. Anthony’s fire)
An acute strep infection often induced by an open wound, erysipelas is now rare, since the advent of sulfa drugs and antibiotics, but is still occasionally seen among the elderly and the debilitated.

The Danger: The basic danger is septicemia (blood poisoning). Other serious complications are notably pneumonia, nephritis, and rheumatic fever.

Symptoms: The skin (most particularly the face) is painful and warm. The rash, which is raised, varies from dull red to scarlet with advancing margins. The most tender spots are immediately beyond the margins. The rash can also appear on the legs. Attendant symptoms are chills and a very high fever, with severe, intense, intermittent headaches plus nausea and vomiting as the body tries to fight off septicemia. The face can become badly swollen, often closing up the eyes. The lymph nodes also become swollen and painful.

Treatment: Oral penicillin is highly successful against this once very dangerous disease. A cold compress of magnesium sulphate is both therapeutic and soothing. Since erysipelas is highly infectious, proper care and sterilization of clothing are necessary.

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Pemphigus
Lichen Planus
Contact Dermatitis
HIVES (urticaria)
Psoriasis

Vitilogo and Baldness

Skin Diseases: VITILIGO (piebald skin)
Vitiligo has no other symptom but the loss of pigmentation in patches of the skin, with the affected parts becoming more vulnerable to sunlight and, consequently, burning more quickly.The area may be a single patch or a number of patches of any size with sharply demarcated lines. Often a permanent condition, vitiligo is usually slowly progressive. Generally there is no specific medication except protective ointments or lotions against the sun. Using custom embroidered patches, you can also spread the good news to others.

Skin Diseases: BALDNESS (alopecia)
The only cure for male pattern baldness (hereditary) is a toupee or hair transplant. The latter is unpleasant, tedious, and expensive, involving the transplanting of each individual hair by punch graft from a thick spot to the bald area. Despite years of research and large expenditures of money to cure this affliction all that has been learned so far is that it is not an affliction-it is the same as inheriting blue eyes or a long neck or pointed ears.

There is some small solace believed by many, including some authorities (perhaps they are bald themselves), that bald men with heavy beards also enjoy a superior virility, noting that such men have a higher output of male hormones. Eunuchs, they argue, are known to have a heavy head of hair and little or no beard. The validity of this concept has not been thoroughly investigated.

Male pattern baldness can start in middle age or in youth, often as early as in the late teens. Patchy baldness (alopecia areata) , ranging in size from a dime to a quarter or larger, is a different matter. After a few weeks or months the hair returns as mysteriously as it disappeared. No one seems to know much about it. Women do not suffer from hereditary pattern baldness. They can and do lose some of their hair, but it is usually in late middle age and follows a less definite pattern. However, hair loss earlier in life does occur, resulting from specific causes, such as pregnancy (the hair will return after the child is born).

Other conditions that can produce some degree of baldness in both sexes are high fever, syphilis, TB, and infectious diseases. If and when the underlying condition is removed, the hair usually returns. Hair loss in women is more often due to abuse-dousing the hair with rinses, bleaches, hair dyes, none of which does the hair the slightest bit of good.

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Other articles about skin:

Pemphigus
Lichen Planus
Contact Dermatitis
HIVES (urticaria)
Psoriasis