Archive for June, 2011
I covered some of this information on a previous post but its worth reiterating again the numbers on Eczema. Atopic Dermatitis or Eczema has been preety prevelant and is very common. It affects both male and females and it has also been up to 20 percent of all visits to the dermatoligists. For those who are not familar with the term Dermatoligists: Dermatoligists are doctors who specialize in the care of skin related diseaes or care.
Atopic Dermatitis can occr at any age but in many cases it begins in infancy or childhood. It is stated by Scientists that 65% of patients develop symptoms in the first year of life and about 90% of patients develop symptoms before the age of 5. Here is an interesting fact for people who get excema after 30 which is my case and less common its often due to exposing your skin to wet or harsh conditions. Now for me I cannot see what harsh conditions I could of exposed myself too but it still is an interesting fact for you to take into consideration.
Interesting enough people who live in cities and places where the climate is dry are also more likely to develop this condition. Why its hard to say for sure the 20% of patients that see the dermatoligists for eczema in infancy and childhood a whoping 60% of these children experience atopic dermatitis symptoms in their adult hood. This means approximateley 15 million people in the United States suffer from Eczema.
Unfortanately and really depending on the indiviuals flare up one may think that Eczema is contagious. THIS IS UNEQUIVICALLY UNTRUE. ECZEMA IS NOT CONTAGIOUS. I am sorry to put this statement in All caps but I wanted to emphasize the point.
Eczema or Atopic Dermatitis is a chronic long lasting disease that affects the skin but it cannot be passed on to others. However it has been known to be inherited from time to time. A parent could pass the trait to a child or may not it really depends most cases of eczema come from allergies. A topic will explore in future posts.
So what is Atopic Dermatitis? I never heard of the term until I went to the doctor and was given a prescription for my eczema. Atopic Dermatitis is the clinical term that goes interchangeably for eczema. Atopic can be thought as hereditary or in the family and dermatitis stands for inflammation of the skin. An interesting note about atopic dermatitis it is associated with one of the three things. The first being eczema, the other asthma and hay fever which is shocking since I never knew that they all were considered to be categorized under this broad term.
In Atopic Dermatitis the skin becomes really itchy. This is well known for people who suffer from it like myself. Because of this it causes you to scratch. Scratching can lead to redness and rashing which is visibly seen in most cases. However in more than a few cases scratching of the skin can lead to swelling cracking “weeping” clear fluid crusting and scaling. I am happy to say I just had to deal with the redness and rashing but regardless this is very uncomfortable.