Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 2:48PM
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By Diane Mapes
Spring is here and with it the traditional sounds of allergy season: Sniffling, sneezing, wheezing and “honking.”
But while nearly 35 million Americans cope with everyday allergens like pollen, dust mites or pet dander, there are some itchy souls who suffer from more unusual triggers – nail polish, cockroaches and iPods, to name a few.
“Women will come in with redness on the lids of their eyes,” says Dr. Beth Corn, assistant professor of medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. That’s a telltale sign of nail polish allergy – triggered by a fairly common reaction to the ingredient toluene sulphonamide formaldehyde resin. “I’ll tell them they’re allergic to nail polish and they’ll be shocked. But fingers touch your face a lot, particularly your eyes.”
Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 11:56AM
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By Diane Mapes
AC/DC guitarist Angus Young may pretend his index fingers are devil’s horns in live concerts, but human beings have actually been known to sprout a horn or two.
Called cutaneous horns (cutaneous is Latin for “of the skin”), these growths occur when the surface of the skin thickens, usually in response to some type of disease.
Sometimes the diseased or damaged layer of skin can blister or become white and scaly, similar in appearance to a psoriasis outbreak. Or it can become as thick as the hide of an elephant or a rhinoceros.
