Skin
 Health
 and
 Conditions
From Acne to Zits

            Welcome to our page all about skin health and conditions.

Fast facts
Parts, pictures, and processes
Disorders, damage, disease
The different times of treatment
   Past
  Present
  Future
Track
Quiz
List of Links
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Fast facts:
- red-heads and blondes are most likely to have freckles
- if you want to get a tan from sun lamps or a tanning bed, you skin is at a 5 times greater risk of skin cancer
- dermatologist is just a fancy name for a skin doctor
- more than 10 in 100 babies are born with birthmarks
- the skin on your hand is covered with an oil called sebum.  Your fingers get wrinkly after you've been in water a long time and the sebum has washed off
- many skin diseases (like scabies) have nothing to do with your higene
- head lice is often classified as a skin disease0
- if you travel to a different climate or drastically different geographic, location, you're at more a risk of skin diseases
 

The different times of treatment
    In this section you will read about the treatments we had then, now, and the treatments we will have.

Past
  In the past, skin was veiwed as just the wrapping of the body.  People could do little or nothing about inconsequential skin blemishes or serious, possibly fata;l diseases.  In the pursuit of beauty, The Romans and other cultures, up until the 1800's, used ghastly concotions that actually harmed the skin.  Imagine using Bats blood to remove hair, or putting deadly, powdered lead on your face to whitten it.  There were, however, some effective methods of treating other bodily pain, using the skin.  In China, accupuncture, ( a method of inserting needles into the skin of strategic points to reduce pain etc.) was popular and deemed effective.  It is one of several traditional methods regaining popularity today.  Another Chinese method involving the skin was a type of small pox innoccuation.  Small pox scabs were removed from victims, dried, and snorted up the noses of the uninfected.
    More recently, other important developments of tools like the ultraviolet ray lamp (useful for diagonosing and uberculosis and other skin diseases) and the perfection of something life saving techniques like skin grafting, have vastly advanced the areas of diagnosing and treating skin aliments.  Up until the present, the technology and medicines involved with the health and treatment of skin was at a minimum, but now we have entered the golden age.

Present
    Today we are winning the battle against skin diseases-  many of them we know all about- hw to diagnose them and treat them.  For many others, we have temporary solutions.  Still more are on the brink of being cured.  The secrets of diseases previously misunderstood have now been revealed.  Treatments are much more readily avaliable- from sunscreen and benyzol perxide acne creams to skin cancer treatments.  Those of us who are born with birthmarks, acquire scars, or sprout warts can get cosemitic and/or laser surgery to remove them.  However, even now we soetimes harm our skin in the pursuit of beauty.  Often, people trying to get a tan harm the dermis layer of their skin when they absorb UV rays from the sun.  It is the hey day of solutions and problems in the field of skin health and aliments.  For every new medications, there is sure to be someone for who it won't work.  We have also over come many of the social problems that go with serious skin diseases, loke leprosy.  Despire some occasional ssbackward steps we are racing forward in our advancements.

Future
  Who knows how far we will get?  A hundred years ago could we have imagined where we would be today?  I am of the opinion that skin treatments in th future will be much of a self admisistered program.  Many medicines that are today only semi-effective will be made much more efficient- like sacylic wart removers.  Perhaps we will have eliminated leprosy entirely- making the repulsive appearance, discomfort, and socailly outcast status of its victims a thong of the past.  Certainly, the future holds many improvements in this medical fields.

Parts, processes, and pictures
 

Your skin is your body's largest organ, weighing about six pounds.  It is part of your excretory sustem and helps you sense your surrondings through the numerous dendrites in it.  The skin has two mainlayers- the epidermis and the dermis.  The epidermis is the part you can see- a thick layer of dead cells that protects your body.  The cells are constantly flaking off- you shed your whole skin every 28 days.  The lower layer is your dermis- nerve dendrites, hair follicles, and cappillaries, itcy red skin, are sweat glands are all located in this layer.  Sensory hairs, rooted in the dermis, profrude through the epidermis.  When your skin is stimulated, the hairs are raised by a tiny erector muscle.     Your skin also protects your body from invading diseases.  Thus, it is very important to keep your skin clean and healthy.

Disorders, Damage, and Disease

  Since your skin is your body's first line of defense it is prone to damage and attack.  Certain serious diseases prey upon your skin itself- from skin cancer to leprosy.  There are countless serious ones that affect the way your skin looks like.  For example freckles, birthmarks, and sunburn.  Some, like sunburns, rashesm and tans, are usually caused by certain factors in your surrondings.  Most damage heals in time and leaves you little worse for wear, but other types, like burns may scar your skin permantly.  Many diseases are contracted during your lifetime- like scabies, rashes, acne and lice.  Sometimes people inherit skin conditions, like oily, scaly, dry skin or acne.
    Often in attemping to correct the appearence of our skin and its pimples, rashes, and, pockmarks, we harm it by applying an excess by medications or continuing use of skin care products that we are allergic to; both of which aften aggrivate the problem.  One of the biggest issues with skin diseases is tht people don't take them seriously enough, hopefully in the futre they will be considered with more gravity.

QUIZ
  Okay lets see what you learned at our web site.  If you want to see what you learned click the site below.  There will be a quiz there.

  http://www.4teachers.org/tools/quizstar/quizes/3485.html

Track
    Our track is full of sites and questions.  You can gain a lot of knowledge there.  So please visit our track at:
 http://scrtec.org/track/tracks/s10176.html

List of Links

Kids health

    A site with lots of good health and safety information for all age groups- includes factual but fun articles of on many topics including skin.  Nifty summaries make this site easy to use.
http://kidshealth.org/

Healthy lives: Dermaitis

A cool site with good information on Dermatitis.  The site is formatted with questions (issues) and their causes.  It does, however, have no pictures.
http://12.4.5.33/dermatitis.html

Information on Skin Diseases

This site gives you a vast list of skin diseases and condtions, each of which links to a seperate page with information and pictures.
http://www.snc.gov.sg/commskin/skin.html

The Cutaneous Parasite Home Page

An extensive site all about the nasty little creatures that infect your skin- from ticks on up.  Ton of pictures!!!!!
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/9542/arachnids.html

American Academy of Dermatology

There is very little text on this site, mostly there are good and very close-up pictures.  Most of them are rather nasty so be careful what you click on!

http://tray.dermatology.uiowa.edu/PIPs/PIP.Index.htm