Scabies is a very contagious skin condition caused by contamination with parasite microscopic mites. The mite responsible for causing scabies in humans is called Sarcoptes scabiei var. hominis and it can be easily acquired through contact with infested people or contaminated objects. Due to its very contagious character, scabies is very likely to cause serious epidemics in overcrowded orphanages, nursing homes, kindergartens and schools. In order to prevent the spreading of scabies, doctors recommend people with the condition to avoid entering in contact with others.
Scabies mites can live for up to a week without a human host. Thus, bed linens, towels, clothing and all the other personal items of people affected by scabies need to be properly washed in hot water to avoid a second infestation.
As an extra precaution, all the people who have entered in contact with patients diagnosed with scabies also need to follow an appropriate medical treatment, even if they don’t show any clear signs of contamination. Scabies has an incubation period of around 1-2 weeks and most symptoms occur within this period of time. Once the parasite mites contaminate the skin, the first signs of scabies are skin inflammation, rash and persistent itch.
Scabies mites are microscopic organisms and their presence on a human host can be difficult to reveal. Also, most of the symptoms generated by scabies are unspecific and sometimes they can be misleading in the process of diagnosing the condition. The first revealing signs of scabies usually emerge a few weeks after infestation, allowing the parasite mites to proliferate and to spread in various regions of the body within this period of time. The presence of scabies in people can only be confirmed by careful physical examinations.
Soon after contamination, female scabies mites burrow into the skin and lay their eggs. The mites’ eggs contain substances that are very toxic to the human body, generating allergies and rash. After they hatch, the larvae climb to the skin surface, where they continue to develop into adult mites. Even if the larvae are spotted and removed from the skin, they can still survive for up to a week.
Scabies mites tend to infest less exposed regions of the skin. The female mites usually lay their eggs under the nails, in the skin folds between the fingers and toes, around the elbows, armpits, buttocks, or in the pubic region. In very young children or elderly people, scabies mites can even infest the scalp and face.
The symptoms of scabies occur as a result of allergic reactions to the mites’ eggs and feces. Within the first week from infestation, people with scabies develop rashes on the affected regions of the skin.
Later symptoms include the presence of burrows, crusty aspect of the skin, blisters, pustules and even nodules. If the infestation with mites is not quickly eradicated, people affected by scabies are at risk of developing serious bacterial or fungal infections. If scabies is not appropriately treated, it can lead to skin disorders such as impetigo.
Rosacea gives dilated blood vessels and inflammation in the skin. The skin is often also infected by bacteria. Most often the face is attacked and especially the convex surfaces of the face. Sometimes also the eyes or other body parts are affected. Rosacea may begin early, but distinct and serious symptoms usually develop as an individual gets older.
WHAT SYMPTOMS ARE SEEN BY ROSACEA
The primary symptoms of rosacea are the following. All the symptoms may not be present always.
Permanent redness in the skin. This redness can get better or worse periodically.
Flushing or redness that comes and disappears periodically
Telangiectasia – This is a distinct widening of small blood vessels in an area.
Papules – Small dome-shape spots filled with fluid, often group wise.
Skin areas with rosasea symptoms often get infected, and the infection worsens the symptoms.
Pustules or pimples Sometimes infection makes the papules develop into real pimples. However, if the pimples appear in a hair follicle stuffed with sebum (comedones), they are a symptom of acne, and not rosacea. Pimples from acne and rosacea may exist together.
Rosacea also implies secondary symptoms that are caused by the primary symptoms, or appear later than the primary ones.
Burning or stinging
Placks – elevated red areas
Scaling, often associated with burning or stinging
Dry skin, often occurring before scaling
Edema coming in areas that already has been red for some time
Symptoms from the eyes like: Redness, itching, burning, corneal damage
Thickening of the skin, or lumps in the skin
Distended hair follicles
Rosacea in other places than the face
WHAT CAUSES ROSACEA
The exact causes are not known, but some people seem to inherit the tendency of developing rosacea.
People that blush very often seem to develop rosacea more easily. Therefore rosacea may be caused by blood vessels that dilate too easily upon stimulation, and eventually become permanently dilated.
The following types of stimulation may cause worsening of the rosacea symptoms: heat, hot baths, strenuous exercise, sunlight, wind, very cold temperatures, hot or spicy foods and drinks, alcohol consumption, menopause, emotional stress, prolonged use of topical steroids on the skin.
HOW IS ROSACEA TREATED
Traditional medicine does not have any treatment for the basic processes of rosacea, such as redness and the blood vessel extention.
Laser treatment may be used to take away dilated blood vessels or skin irregularities by rosacea. The laser light heats and destroys the dilated blood vessels.
When infection is a part of the disease, and papules or pustules occur, rosacea is treated with antibiotics, usually applied directly on the skin, for example metronidazole.
Oral treatment may also be used by severe rosacea, for example with: Tetracycline, minocycline, erythromycin, and doxycycline.
By pimple formation, you can also use rinsing skin cleansers in the same way as by acne.On the market you can find several alternative medicines, mostly topical creams, to treat rosacea.
These often contain natural oils, herbal extracts, vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants that alleviate inflammation and stimulate skin healing. They may also contain mild antiseptic agents to treat bacterial infection.
Hardly noticeable at the beginning, the rash first appears on your knees, elbows or on the hairy side of the skull, as small reddish scales. Then it transforms into large spots, covered by silver scales.
Later in the process the rash extends on other skin surfaces, turning your body into a cubic picture and you life in a nightmare. Most people have no idea that psoriasis isn’t contagious and they can’t help their fear and disgust as they meet a sick person.
Throughout recorded history there was no case of the disease being transmitted from one person to another, even when coming in contact with infected blood. Regardless, even in the richest countries of the world, there is about 4% of the population recorded as suffering from this disease.
What do we know about it?
A lot of physicians point out endocrinal disturbances as well as metabolically and changes in the immune system of the patient. There are papers stating that the disease is caused by certain types of neuroses as well as stress, but many admit that this illness is still a mystery for physicians. Unfortunately, there is no known treatment against this disease that keeps it away for good.
However, by studying the numerous forms and types of psoriasis, doctors have managed to develop a treatment which guarantees a lasting remission of the disease. They can also guarantee a drastic demise up to complete disappearance of symptoms for many years.
More information on psoriasis
Most people inherited psoriasis. 60% of the patients have relatives who suffered, or still suffer of this terrible illness. There is just one chromosome responsible for it. But, even if someone were to trace back to a few hundreds of years his genealogic tree, and if it could be proven that no one in his family ever suffered from psoriasis, this wouldn’t matter a lot. Because of the pathology, the chromosome can be dormant for years, and kids with infected parents could live a long life without a spot on their body.
Nevertheless, some circumstances can be looked in. Like the age for instance most of the sick are between 15 and 25 years old. This happens because of the hormonal transformations the body goes trough at puberty, as well as increased psychical instability.
The three stages
The first noticeable thing when studying psoriasis is the red skin. Any doctor would tell you about the three stages of the disease: progressive, stationary and regressive. During the first stage of the disease, the spots are swollen, hard to the touch and they have a bright color. The spots appear in friction and pressing areas, such as where the bra closes, or on an injury.
In the second phase, no more spots appear, but the existing ones tend to link together to form larger and pail ones.
The final stage, the regressive stage, is characterized by the partial and sometimes complete disappearance of the spots. It should be noticed that the pale spots are then replaced by darker ones.
Acne Diet Link Exposed: Is There an Acne Cure Diet that Works?
Acne Diet and The Money Factor: You Can’t Sell a Healthy Diet
Ask any medical doctor if there is a connection between diet and acne and almost all of them will claim there is none. Quoting from the Journal of the American Medical Association: “Diet plays no role in acne treatment in most patients…even large amounts of certain foods have not clinically exacerbated acne”.
With years of medical education and clinical experience behind these claims, how can we the simple folks who suffer from acne challenge these statements and think otherwise? The answer is: doubt.
Doubt, if its stays in the borders of reason, can open many doors otherwise will stay forever shut. Believe it or not, doubt can change reality. Doubt can cure your acne and doubt can even save your life.
Fact is, countless of acne sufferers have reported that their acne seemed to get worse when they consumed certain foods and saw dramatic positive change over their acne condition when they eliminated the same foods from their diet and when certain foods with specific nutritional value were incorporated into their diet.
So why do dermatologists so stubbornly insist that diet does not cause acne? The answer: you can’t make a profit promoting a healthy diet.
At least not as much money as you could make by selling drugs and over the counters. There is a huge pressure upon doctors coming from the drug and pharmaceutical companies to prescribe expensive medications and lotions that create dependency.
The truth is, that your doctor is in a way, a hostage by the trillion dollar drug companies. Did you know that the drug companies, who have no interest in producing something that they cannot control financially, sponsor most medical schools?
The right diet, although not a solution by itself, can, in many cases, dramatically reduce inflammation and even completely clear one’s acne (if you’re one of the lucky ones who’s acne is triggered by allergic response to food).
Promoting a clear skin diet simply means less profits for the drug and pharmaceutical companies.
The truth is that conventional medications will never cure your acne, simply because they are pre-designed NOT to fix the internal cause of acne. They are pre-designed to deal with the external symptoms of a disease as they create more and more dependency and more dependency means making more money all at our expense and ignorance.
The Theory That Diet Doesn’t Cause Acne Is A Myth
The dogmatic theory that diet does not cause acne and that acne is merely an incurable genetic disorder was based upon two dated researches published in 1969 and 1971 that were aimed at studying the connection between diet and acne.
These studies were the foundation of the ‘acne symptoms treatment strategy’, meaning, because acne is a genetic disease that cannot be prevented, the only way to deal with acne would be to tackle its symptoms (bacteria, inflammation, puss, redness, greasiness), by applying creams, antibiotics, taking prescription drugs and over the counters.
Surprisingly enough, years after the above studies were published, clinical trials and in depth researches experimenting the acne diet link have found that the studies from 1969 and 1971 had came to the wrong conclusions and were in fact seriously flawed.
Recent studies have clearly found a significant connection between diet and acne. It appears that the wrong diet is now thought to be one of the leading acne contributing factors that can negatively affect hormonal regulation and the natural process of toxic elimination, which can seriously aggravate one’s existing acne.
Diet Shapes Who You Are (Including Your Acne)
In the same way that crashing waves shape beach cliffs and just like the wind shapes the canyon walls, slowly and methodically over time, so does eating shapes and effects our physic, our internal system, our physical and mental being, from the organ down to the cellular level.
The idea that an object foreign to our body that is inserted by the food that we eat, has no effect on us, or has no impact on chronic conditions such as acne is absurd. Diet is the primary thing that affects and shapes who we are. Diet has cumulative effect on our bodies, and that includes our skin condition and acne, which is a manifestation of a chronic internal problem slowly shaped and built by the wrong daily dietary choices over the years.
Acne Diet and The Kitavan Islanders
While in the U.S, more than 80% of teenagers between 16 and 18 have acne and more than 17 million Americans suffer from some form of acne, there is an interesting evidence that native people that live and eat in traditional ways, have significantly lower to no occurrences of acne.
In 2002, Dr. Cordain and his colleagues published a landmark study that examined 300 people living in the Kitavan Islands off the coast of Papua New Guinea that showed that none of the islanders had even one blemish on his or her face.
Similar to the Kitavans, no case of acne had been observed when the same experiment had been conducted upon the South American Indians called the Ache, living in a remote jungle in eastern Paraguay. The natives of Kitavan and the South American Indians had no access to the latest over the counters, topical creams or conventional acne medications and they had no dermatologist to consult with. The only vast difference between them and American or European citizens is their diet.
Acne Diet and Sugar: The Sweet Poison
Aside from the fact that sugar is a 100% pure chemical with zero nutritional value, recent studies have clearly shown a connection between the consumption of sugar and the aggravation of acne. When you consume any form of refined carbohydrates (white sugar, white flour, white rice) here’s what happens: right after you insert that ‘sweet poison’ into your body, it rapidly spikes up your blood sugar levels. Your body needs to bring those levels down so it secrets a surge of insulin, other male hormones and an insulin-like growth factor called IGF-1. The excretion of these hormones overwhelms your liver and your internal system in general. The excess of male hormones encourages the skin to excrete large amounts of sebum oil: The greasy substance that encourages the p.acne bacteria to grow, resulting in the aggravation of your acne.
Acne Diet and Dairy Products: Got Milk? Got Acne
If you thought sugar can aggravate your acne, here’s another major nutritional player in the formation of acne: behold the miracles of milk. Milk (all dairy products included) is the most harmful, mucus forming, allergenic and acne aggravating food you can find. Surprised? I thought so.
After years of constant brainwashing by the media, who can blame us for thinking milk is good for strong bones and healthy teeth? The truth is: every sip of milk contains 59 different raging hormones, (which trigger the hyper-production of sebum oil resulting in more acne), saturated animal fat, steroid hormones, dead white blood cells, and cow pus in abundance!
Did you know that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows 750 million pus cells in every liter of milk (about two pounds) produced in America? Think about it, the next time you pop a pimple. Scientific studies already point the finger at milk as one of the worst acne aggravating foods: “As pointed out by Dr. Jerome Fisher, ‘About 80 percent of cows that are giving milk are pregnant and are throwing off hormones continuously.’ Progesterone breaks down into androgens, which have been implicated as a factor in the development of acne…Dr. Fisher observed that his teenage acne patients improved as soon as the milk drinking stopped.”
If there’s one element you should remove from your diet in the quest for clear skin make it this one. Not only will you see an immediate improvement over your acne, you’ll feel a huge weight has been lifted from your body. If you worry about calcium intake, don’t! Milk being acidic forming food creates a leeching effect where calcium is taken from your bones to balance the acidity. Milk actually deprives your body from its calcium resources. Green leafy vegetables, nuts and seeds are not only excellent sources of calcium they also have the powers to help you fight your acne symptoms.
Diet Is Only One of The Factors That Cause Acne
Dairy products and sugar are not the only acne aggravating foods. The two above cannot sum up the list of western made acne triggering foods.
There are several other foods you should clearly stay away from if you ever wish to clear your acne. The good new is that there are tons of other foods such as essential fatty acids that are not only excellent for your skin, they can actually help you clear your acne, by re-balancing your body and promoting to an acne-free environment.
The right nutrition plays an important part in the complex process of acne formation. When doctors claim there is no link between diet and acne because certain individuals can eat specific foods and get acne while others eat the same foods and don’t, these doctors have failed to realize that there are several factors involved in the formation and aggravation of acne and diet is only ONE of them.
The Final Verdict On The Acne Diet Connection: How To Finally Overcome Your Acne Challenge
Acne is a complex condition that is triggered by several underlying factors. The only way to neutralize your acne condition is to tackle all these acne-contributing factors-holistically.
Since the wrong diet is only one of these acne-triggering factors, in most cases no special diet can cure acne. There is a however, a tight connection between diet and acne formation. Dietary factors can trigger and aggravate your existing acne.
Avoiding the wrong foods such as milk, sugar and hydrogenated oils, and eating cleansing and hormonal balancing foods such as green leafy vegetables and essential fatty acids, can help your skin heal itself from the inside out and dramatically reduce your acne symptoms.
There are also several important dietary principals that you must understand and follow if you ever want to cure your acne for good. Taking responsibility over your body and adhering to these dietary principals along with taking the necessary steps to tackle all acne contributing factors, holistically, will not only cure your acne permanently and give you the flawless acne free skin you deserve, following these principals will also significantly improve your overall health, mental well-being, look and feel.
Mike Walden is a certified nutritionist, independent medical researcher, natural health consultant and author of the #1 best-selling e-book, “Acne No More- Open The Door To An Acne Free Life.” Mike has written dozens of holistic health articles and has been featured in ezines and print magazines, as well as on hundreds of websites worldwide. For information on Mike’s Holistic Clear Skin program, visit: Acne No More- Open The Door To An Acne Free Life
Hidradenitis Suppurativa is a non-contagious skin disease that is also known as Acne Inversa. This condition affects areas of the body where there is skin to skin contact and where sweat or oil glands are present; common areas are the underarms, breasts, buttocks, anal region, and groin. It affects between 1 to 4% of the world’s population, and is more likely to occur in females.
Symptoms
Hidradenitis Suppurativa is characterized by persistent abscesses, cysts (epidermoid, sebaceous, and pilonidal) and infections. The condition is chronic and often goes through alternating periods of remission and flare-ups. During flare-ups, the inflammation tends to be severe and patients may develop fever and be very fatigued. The pain can be unbearable and the person’s movements will be very limited. The abscesses often drain pus and leave open wounds that may not heal. Eventually, abscesses may become interconnected through tunnels under skin and this makes the condition harder to treat.
Causes
The immediate cause of Hidradenitis Suppurativa is clogging of the apocrine glands, due to dead skin cells become trapped in the gland, over production of oil, or bacterial accumulation. This will cause the plug to swell with pus formation. What causes this simple blockage to progress into a full blow Hidradenitis Suppurativa case is still debated, however, possible theories include an auto-immune reaction, hormone imbalances and genetic disorders. It is also known that excessive sweating and being overweight will increase the risk of developing the condition. Furthermore, wearing tight clothing, excessive shaving, using lithium medications and hot humid climates have been identified as triggering factors.
Stages
Clinically, Hidradenitis Suppurativa is described to occur in three stages. Stage 1 is characterized by the presence of a single or multiple abscesses without scarring that may be misdiagnosed as acne. Stage 2 is characterized by recurrent abscesses, lesions and sinus tract formation. At this stage inflammation will limit the person’s range of movement. Stage 3 is characterized by severe inflammation leading to swellings up to the size of baseballs. Scarring is prevalent, as are frequent infections.
Treatment
Hidradenitis Suppurativa treatment will depend on the clinical presentation and extent of the condition. Antibiotics may be prescribed to treat any infections and for anti-inflammatory effect. Corticosteroids, NSAIDs and other anti-inflammatory drugs are also widely used. For some cases, surgery may be needed. In Europe, Electron Beam Radiotherapy is also sometimes used.
Unfortunately, medical treatments for Hidradenitis Suppurativa are of very limited effectiveness and may cause side effects. Lifestyle changes, dietary intervention and natural extracts are often more effective at controlling the condition and sending it into remission, and indeed a complete cure is possible without any medical intervention. Lifestyle changes include the use of hydrotherapy, balneotherapy and icing of the area. Dietary intervention includes the adoption of an anti-inflammatory diet, use of specific vitamin and mineral supplements, and the achievement of a healthy bodyweight.
For a complete guide on curing Hidradenitis Suppurativa through a natural and holistic approach, visit Therese Wilson’s Fast Hidradenitis Suppurativa Cure™. Wilson is a certified nutritionist, holistic health consultant and a Hidradenitis Suppurativa specialist.
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