What Your Skin Is Trying To Tell You

Dr. Andrea Suarez, dermatologist, gives us the inside info:

Most people don’t think much about it, but…

You might want to recognize these patterns of symptoms, because often there’s an easy fix, and sometimes there’s something very important you should know:

• Aracked corners of your mouth (angular cheilitis): redness, scaling, and painful cracks are most commonly caused by saliva pooling from lip licking, drooling, gum chewing, or poorly fitted dentures; candida yeast can overgrow in this moist environment, while nutritional deficiencies such as B vitamins or iron are less common causes; management focuses on barrier protection with petroleum jelly (e.g. Vaseline) or zinc oxide (e.g. Sudocrem), antifungals if there’s yeast*, and avoiding behaviors that increase saliva exposure.
  • *Or rather, if there’s a yeast overgrowth. Because one thing about yeast is that there’s always yeast, unless you have gone to truly extreme lengths to not have yeast, and you did that right now, and/or in a clean-room that you are still in. Because otherwise, 10 minutes later, you’ll have picked up some yeast again from the environment.
• Dry, cracked heels: usually result from thick skin on your soles drying out due to low humidity, barefoot walking, aging, or menopause-related lipid loss, not diet or nutritional deficiencies; consistent barrier repair with ointments, keratolytic ingredients like urea, salicylic acid, or alpha hydroxy acids, wearing socks, and sealing painful cracks to allow healing are key for this one.
• Acanthosis nigricans: darker, thickened skin on your neck, underarms, groin, face, or hands is a sign of skin thickening rather than pigmentation and serves as a warning sign of insulin resistance; topical treatments alone are ineffective unless the underlying metabolic issue is addressed.
• Asteatotic eczema (eczema craquelé): very dry, cracked skin with a “dry riverbed” appearance, commonly on your lower legs in older adults, often caused (counterintuitively) by overbathing, long hot showers, and excessive soap use; improvement comes from shortening showers, avoiding soap on your legs, using petroleum jelly initially, then urea or ammonium lactate moisturizers, and increasing ambient humidity.
• Sudden oilier skin: rapid increases in oiliness are driven by hormonal changes such as puberty, pregnancy, postpartum shifts, starting or stopping birth control, perimenopause, menopause, testosterone therapy (but not estradiol/progesterone therapy) or certain steroids; excess oil can worsen acne and yeast-related conditions, so gentle cleansing and oil removal help, while aggressive exfoliation and overwashing can damage your skin barrier, so do still try to go easy on that.
• allergic contact dermatitis from shampoo or conditioner: itchy, red, or oozing rashes behind your ears, along your hairline, neck, or eyelids often follow a rinse-off pattern linked to allergens in hair products, commonly fragrances, preservatives like methylisothiazolinone, cocamidopropyl betaine, and often even some essential oils; patch testing is needed to identify and avoid the trigger.

For more on all of these plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:

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Want to learn more?

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Take care!