What’s Your Skin Saying?

Aside from being the largest organ in our body, our skin protects us against invasive bacteria, regulates our body temperature, and picks up information from the stimulation of touch, pressure, pain, heat, and cold. Little wonder, then, that when there’s something wrong with your health that your skin is often the first to know.

Here’s the skinny on several dermatologic oddities worth watching out for:

Orange palms and soles

What it means: The cartoonish skin hues can be the unfunny result of an underactive thyroid gland. Hypothyroidism causes increased levels of beta-carotene in the blood. When there’s a thyroid problem, the gland doesn’t metabolize the vitamins as quickly, so beta-carotene accumulates. Orange skin can also occur due beta-carotene as a result of a diet heavy in carrots, carrot juice, sweet potatoes, and squash.

More clues: The skin of someone with hypothyroidism also tends to be dry and cold, and sometimes more pale than yellowed. Feeling tired, sluggish, weak, or achy are the main symptoms, along with possible unexplained weight gain. Women over 50 most often develop hypothyroidism.

What to do: Carotenemia caused by a skewed diet isn’t serious and resolves itself when a broader range of foods is consumed. Hypothyroidism, however, is a medical condition that can lead to complications such as heart problems, and warrants attention from a doctor.

Breaking out in hives in the sun

What it means: Being truly allergic to the sun is pretty rare. A more likely explanation is having taken a photosensitizing drug that increases the person’s sensitivity to light. One of the most common culprits is thiazide diuretics prescribed for hypertension. Other meds that can produce this effect include antihistamines, tetracycline, and tricyclic antidepressants.

More clues: The rash is limited to sun-exposed areas, including the forearms, the neck, and, less commonly, the face. It can feel worse and last longer than a sunburn.

What to do: Check the labels of your prescription medications. Look for phrases such as “May cause chemical photosensitivity.”

Long dark lines in the palm

What it means: A palm-reading mystic might have her own interpretation, but to a physician, a deepening of the pigment in the creases of the palms or soles is a symptom of adrenal insufficiency – Addison’s disease.

More clues: Hyperpigmentation may also be visible around other skin folds, scars, lips, and pressure points

What to do: It’s important to see a doctor, as skin changes may be the first symptoms seen before an acute attack. Lab tests to measure cortisol will provide a diagnosis.

Large, dusky blue leg veins

What it means: If you’ve got ropy, blue-to-purple lines snaking up your legs this could be a sign that some of your veins are not working properly.

More clues: Varicose veins are sometimes mistaken for spider veins, a weblike network of smaller blue or red veins closer to the skin’s surface. Varicose veins tend to be larger, darker, and sometimes raised, with a twisted appearance.

What to do: Exercise, compression stockings, and avoiding constricting postures (like crossing your legs when seated) can help ease discomfort, but they won’t make varicose veins disappear. While not all faulty veins cause problems, severe venous insufficiency can lead to blood clots and need to be treated.

Brownish spots on the shins

What it means: The fronts of the legs tend to bang and bump into things a lot. For someone with diabetes, the damage to the capillaries and small blood vessels that are characteristic of the disease will cause them to leak when traumatized, leading to brown discoloration known as diabetic dermopathy.

More clues: The brownish patches may also be rough, almost scaly and tend to form ovals or circles.

What to do: There’s no health danger from diabetic dermopathy, and no need for treatment.

Persistent rash that you want to scratch raw

What it means: Clusters of small, ferociously itchy blisters that show up repeatedly in the forearms near the elbows, the knees, the buttocks, the back, or the face or scalp are a hallmark of celiac disease, or an allergy to gluten.

More clues: The rash appears on both sides of the body. Itching and burning are so intense you can hardly quit scratching.

What to do: Report the rashes to your doctor or a dermatologist to evaluate and rule out other causes. A gluten-free diet for life is usually advised to keep symptoms at bay.

Purple stains or splotches

What it means: What looks a bit like a bruise, is often mistaken for a bruise, but tends to hang around longer because it’s not exactly a bruise, may be purpura.   It has several possible causes, ranging from a bleeding disorder (thrombocytopenia) to vitamin C deficiency to excessive intake of aspirin, NSAIDs, vitamin E, ginkgo biloba, coumadin, or alcohol.

More clues: A classic bruise tends to turn black and blue following an injury. With purpura, there doesn’t need to be any trauma, the discoloration persists longer than a bruise and the purple color doesn’t blanch when you press it. Purpura are most common on the forearms, legs, and backs of the hands.

What to do: Report the condition to your doctor who can help to identify the cause and recommend the appropriate treatment.

Intense itchiness without rash

What it means: Feeling itchy can have many causes, but when there’s no accompanying visible skin change, it may be  one of the first symptoms of Hodgkin’s disease or non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

More clues: The itchiness is more intense than that caused by ordinary dry skin. It occurs most commonly, in the lower legs. Less often, the skin looks reddish and inflamed.

What to do: Report persistent, intense itching to your doctor.

Fit to be President?

President Barack Obama knows a thing or two about fitness. Photographers have snapped him playing golf in Hawaii on Christmas Eve, doing impromptu pull-ups before giving a speech in Montana, and even playing a game of pick-up basketball on Election Day. His love of these sports, coupled with his well-documented gym habits and disciplined diet, has led the media to herald Obama as the new face of presidential health.

But, as SRxA’s Word on Health has learned, not all American presidents have been such model specimens of health. Some of them, far from it.  In fact, disease, injury, and destructive habits have run rampant in the 43 commanders-in-chief.

To mark this President’s Day we decided take a look at some the least healthy presidents in American history.

James Monroe, the Fifth President (1817-1825) was shot with a bullet during the Battle of Trenton.  To save his life, a doctor stuck his index finger into the wound to stop Monroe from bleeding out. In 1785, Monroe contracted malaria while visiting a swampy area of the Mississippi River. Sporadic feverish flare-ups plagued him for years afterwards.

In August 1825, Monroe suffered a severe seizure. Though the cause was never pinpointed, it’s speculated that it was triggered by either mushroom poisoning, a stroke, or cerebral malaria.

In 1830, Monroe developed a chronic lung illness that crippled him for several months, leaving him with labored breathing, fever, night sweats, and a nagging cough that sometimes had him spitting up blood. Though never officially diagnosed his symptoms are strongly suggestive of tuberculosis.

Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President (1901-1909) was a frail and sickly child. In the hope of alleviating his asthma and other ailments Roosevelt was encouraged to do lots of physical activity. Boxing became one of his favorite hobbies. However, after being elected to the White House, he suffered a blow to his left eye resulting in a detached retina which left him blind on that side. Later he also lost the hearing in his left ear as a result of surgery necessitated by a middle ear infection

Roosevelt then contracted malaria and suffered an infected leg wound during an expedition into the Amazon rainforest. These injuries resulted in chest pains, high fever, and delirium. Though he didn’t die, he returned to America in a decrepit physical state, and was often unable to leave his bed for years afterwards.

Ronald Reagan, the 40th President (1981-1989) had many well documented health problems. Just like Roosevelt, these included hearing and sight issues. Reagan was so nearsighted that he was disqualified from serving during World War II. Later, when he got glasses, he was surprised to see that trees had leaves – something he’d never known before.

Reagan used a hearing aid in his right ear early in his presidency but later started wearing one in his left ear. It’s been speculated that his hearing was damaged during his early years as a Hollywood actor, when he was exposed to repeated loud gunshot during the filming of his Western movies.

Other health problems included multiple urinary tract infections, prostate stones, colon tumors and skin cancers.  Finally, though he was famous for having a near-photographic memory during his prime, Reagan’s memory deteriorated when he hit his 70s, and he would sometimes forget the names of key staffers and visiting dignitaries. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in 1994.

Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President (1913-1921) suffered from hypertension, headaches, double-vision and multiple strokes throughout adulthood. His third stroke, in 1906, left him blind in his left eye. Finally, in 1919, the president suffered a massive stroke that paralyzed his left side and forced him into a wheelchair. Wilson decided to keep his condition a secret from the public, so isolated himself in the White House, where for the last 3 years of his term his wife Edith made all presidential decisions for him.

, the 34th President (1953-1961) was a four-pack-a-day smoker. He also suffered from Crohn’s disease and gallstones, both of which required surgery. In 1955 Eisenhower suffered a heart attack so severe that his cardiologist advised the president not to run for a second term. Eisenhower ignored his advice, ran, and was reelected. His second term was marred by even more heart trouble: during a five-month span in 1968, he suffered four heart attacks and 14 cardiac arrests. These weakened him to the point where he could only be out of bed for 45 minutes a day, and he died the next year.

John F. Kennedy, 35th President (1961-1963) is remembered as a glamorous, tragic playboy, assassinated too young. What’s less well know is the litany of health problems he suffered throughout his life.

Kennedy’s childhood was riddled with health issues. At 2 years old, he contracted measles, whooping cough, chickenpox and then scarlet fever, which almost killed him. Later in his childhood, he frequently had upper respiratory infections and bronchitis, as well as allergies, frequent colds, asthma.

During his teens, Kennedy underwent an emergency appendectomy, had his tonsils removed, suffered a severe case of pneumonia, and two episodes of jaundice.

While studying at Harvard, Kennedy contracted urethritis, an inflammation of the urethra that results in painful urination. As he failed to seek immediate treatment, this became a chronic problem for many years.

After years of suffering back pains, Kennedy was diagnosed at age 30 with Addison’s disease, a rare endocrine disorder that generally results in fatigue, muscle weakness, nausea, and bronzing of the skin. Kennedy was so ill that he was given the last rites and physicians speculated that he would die within the year. However, steroid therapy and experimental medicinal implants of hormones, animal organ cells, vitamins, enzymes, pain killers and amphetamines and kept him alive. Then in 1966, he was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. The presence of two endocrine diseases raises the possibility that Kennedy had autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome type 2 (APS 2).

We wish all our readers a Happy and Healthy President’s Day.