My experience with both physicians and patients and their often misinterpretation of scientific data leads me to comment and suggest that often relief of symptoms and cure are pushed away inappropriately. Patients gather information from the internet, ITSAN, other support groups and blogs that suggest avoidance of medication will solve the problem. Also personal and [...]
Below are patients who I have seen that had used corticosteroids for many months to years. Representative pictures of them will appear periodically in future blogs. Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world. Eyelids alone following irritation from eye makeup(s). One [...]
Chronic worsening eczematous rash patients are frequently tested and reevaluated to search for a cause because they appear to resist treatment with corticosteroids, “the gold standard of treatment.” The patients are usually atopic dermatitis individuals. Systemic evaluations and various allergic testing coupled with a large variety of topical and systemic medications fail to manage the [...]
Listen to your patient, he will tell you the diagnosis. Sir William Osler, MD. (1849-1919) Dr. Osler, the distinguished Canadian clinical physician often considered the father of modern medicine, understood that the healing process begins when the physician listens carefully to the patient. Osler was brought to Johns Hopkins University in the 1890’s to [...]
When the public hears the word ‘steroid’ they usually think only of the drugs that have strengthening properties like the male hormone testosterone. Anabolic steroids build up muscles and make certain aspects of the body more masculine like deepening of the voice and enlargement of the testes. Anabolic steroids are not cortisone steroids and work [...]
Like antibiotics, corticosteroids ushered in a new era in the treatment of disease. Corticosteroids are most often referred to by the shortened term “steroids.” Media articles often discuss athletes using steroids to add muscle and vigor to their bodies in order to be stronger, faster, and more competitive. These are anabolic male-hormone related “build up” [...]
In my experience almost 100% of patients who appear with burning, itching and pain in the scrotal area are men who have inherited the tendency for atopic dermatitis and then develop irritation or a yeast fungus infection after exercising. They often self prescribe a weak cortisone cream that is obtained without a prescription. Relief occurs [...]
Topical corticosteroid creams and ointments are classified numerically by potency from strongest to weakest 1 – 7. The implication is that the weakest probably won’t do much good but will cause no harm, to the strongest that will cure everything quickly but requires a little care in its usage. Wherever a doctor cannot do [...]
Patients often use preparations manufactured in other parts of the world and at times it is difficult to translate these foreign brand names and chemicals into our grading system. In addition, several super potent steroid shampoos are available that promise to help end scaliness of the scalp. These shampoos are only in contact with the [...]
