Express yourself!
Dermatologists not only see rashes all day long but we can also operate and perform skin surgery to remove skin lesions. Patients are also always asking if there are better ways to improve the scar after surgery. We generally recommend massaging white soft paraffin into the scar or using silicone gels once the stitches have […]
A new cream for eczema?
I’m not really a great fan of Twitter – I have an account, I scroll through it periodically on my phone when on the train but I never have anything really to say on it. Maybe that’s because I like talking and everything I have to say I cannot condense down to a 140 character […]
Snotty faces and urticaria
I was chatting recently to one of my patients. She had recently had her third child in as many years and we were discussing the merits and tribulations of having so many children so close together. The one thing I told her I didn’t miss (amongst quite a few things actually) was the persistent ‘tramline’ […]
There might be a mite in rosacea…
Rosacea can be a real pain; sensitive facial skin, redness, easy flushing and then spots. If you’re really unlucky then you can also start to get textural changes to the skin, what dermatologists call rhinophyma. Then the other pain is that we have no cure for the condition. There are just creams and tablets […]
Smelly cancers?
I recently had to pick up one of my children from a party. The centre where the party was held had various function rooms and it was a bit of a job finding her. However, I followed my nose. Why? There was that particular smell of sweat and high sugar concentrations in the air which […]
Get spotty!
I don’t think I’m alone in finding the whole festive season somewhat stressful. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy it but there’s also a huge sense of relief when it is all over. To make it all worse, when I get stressed, I develop spots, which at this age is just frankly annoying. But […]
Taking the rough with the smooth…
It’s approaching Christmas time with Christmas parties galore and some of us are looking to scrub up and put on our glad rags. Well, for the sake of the environment, it’s time to say goodbye to our trusty face or body scrubs (and polishing toothpastes!) Why? At the time of writing, the UK government […]
Benign male genital dermatoses
At the time of writing this blog, the British Medical Journal had just published an edition which contained a Clinical Update on Benign Male Genital Dermatoses. [BMJ 2016;354:i4337.] An initial thought revealed that I have not written a blog on this topic and a more careful thought was needed on how to write […]
Mushroom medicine
We had people for dinner not long ago. I say this like it’s a big thing and it isn’t normally but as usual, life with all its hectic-ness had been particularly so of late and at the last minute, one of the guests informed me that they didn’t eat meat. The easy steak dinner I […]
New biological therapies for metastatic melanoma
At the time of writing this blog, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has just published new guidance on the use of combination biological therapy for the treatment of metastatic melanoma. What are biological therapies? There are various types of biological therapies available for different diseases. In essence, they […]