Aging skin bruising

It is not uncommon for a friend or relative to corner me with a worried look on his face and ask me about bruising on the arms or legs.  It is one of the more common concerns of patients in the office too.  People are worried that it is a harbinger of leukemia or some other blood disorder.  "Look at my skin.  These spots just appear for no reason.  What are they?"

What I'm seeing is the

Love Your Body - 12 Month Challenge

The Dangerous Choking Game

There is a game that pre-teens are playing that has killed 82 kids since 1995, according the the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).    It is called the "choking game" and these youngsters have no idea how dangerous it is.  There are probably thousands of choking deaths all across the country that have not been reported to the CDC and countless parents who think their child committed suicide,

Hidden Health Care Pricing and Costs

More and more employed people who have health insurance are facing large deductibles so they are actually paying "out of pocket" for tests, Xrays and doctor visits.   Health care policy-makers talk about involving the consumer in the cost of care as a way to force competition and hold down prices.  But finding out how much something costs can be a herculean effort and take hours of time

Red Meat Linked to Death

Advanced warning: meat lovers are not going to like this. 

A well done study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine as shown that red meat consumption is linked with an increased risk of total death, cardiovascular death and cancer death.  Yup...death!  That goes further than what we knew before about red meat connection to heart attacks and strokes.  This is the big one.


This study

Lepromatous leprosy

The answer to yesterday's diagnostic challenge is #2.  Leprosy.

 Most of you were correct.  The patient's face had multiple nodular lesions that coalesced into plaques.  After 9 months of multidrug treatment the skin infiltration and weakness in the left eyelid had diminished.

Leprosy is caused by the bacterium, Mycobacterium leprae.  It is not very contagious and has a long incubation

What is the Diagnosis?

Today's diagnostic challenge is from The New England Journal of Medicine and it is pretty straight forward.  Click on the image for a better view and make your diagnosis.  Check back tomorrow for the answer.

1.  Granulomatosis with polyangitis
2.  Lepromatous leprosy
3.  Neurofibromatosis type 1
4.  Sarcoidosis
5.  Tertiary syphilis

Don't be shy.  Post your guess in the comments section.