Participants:
Series Code: UP
Program Code: UP000083B
|
00:01 Welcome back to the program.
00:02 I'm your host Nick Evenson and we're here with Dr. Marcum 00:04 today talking about skin pain. 00:06 And we invite you, if you have a question 00:08 to go to heartwiseministries.org 00:11 where you can ask your questions. 00:13 You can submit a prayer request if you have something 00:15 that you'd like us to pray for. 00:17 And you can also listen to previous radio programs, 00:20 read Dr. Marcum's blogs, and just give us some feedback 00:24 about what you want to hear on these programs. 00:26 And Dr. Marcum, what kind of experiences 00:29 have you had personally with pain 00:32 in relation to your skin? 00:33 Well, you know, everyone has had-- 00:35 I'm sure everyone out there in our audiences 00:37 had problems with bug bites, you know, animal bites, 00:41 you know, that can cause problems to the skin 00:43 and they usually they inject a toxin. 00:46 When they inject a toxin, your nerves feel it 00:48 and that's what causes the pain. 00:49 The nerve say ouch, 00:51 this is not supposed to be there. 00:52 And then the inflammatory cells come 00:55 and it starts to be inflamed, then it starts to hurt. 00:58 So most of the skin problems are acute problems. 01:00 You know, what caused it. 01:02 You know, and you know how to get over it. 01:04 Some of them, you know, your skin can be damaged 01:07 by chronic problems as well. 01:10 What are some chronic problems? 01:11 We talked about chronically lack of water, 01:13 that's a problem. 01:15 Yeah, dehydration. 01:16 But when I was seven years old, 01:18 I had an accident and during that accident, 01:21 I fell out of a tree. 01:23 And when I fell out of a tree, Nick, I broke my arm 01:26 and the bones ended up like that 01:28 when I broke the arm. 01:30 And nowadays they just would have pinned it 01:31 to straighten the arm, 01:33 but back then they used something called traction, 01:36 where they pull a lot of weight to weaken the muscles, 01:39 so the bones would sort, the muscles would get weak 01:41 and the bones would sort of line up, 01:43 then they could heal 'cause parts don't heal 01:45 well in the body unless they're lined up pretty well. 01:48 So that's what we do in bones. 01:50 So they pull a lot of traction on my arm. 01:54 In fact, they put so much traction on my arm, 01:57 it cut off the blood supply to the arm. 02:00 And when it cut off the blood supply to the arm, 02:02 the arm and the hand didn't get enough oxygen. 02:06 And my skin, certain parts of it 02:09 didn't get enough oxygen became severely painful. 02:12 Severely painful, you don't get enough oxygen, it hurts. 02:15 Your nerves damage, it hurts. 02:17 So my arm sort of, the skin in that felt like 02:19 it was a funny bone, in fact after a while, 02:22 you know, the treatment of course 02:23 is to restore a blood flow. 02:25 And after a while, the only thing 02:28 that would help my hand 02:29 was they actually did a skin graft. 02:31 So I'm probably one of the few people in the world 02:35 that makes me special that has the sun tan 02:38 in the palm of their hand because this came from my leg. 02:40 This skin helped prepare this. 02:42 And I'm also one of the few people 02:43 that have to shave the palm of the hand 02:47 because it still has hair follicles. 02:49 But because modern medicine 02:50 could put skin grafting to my skin, 02:53 it was able to protect this part of my skin 02:56 and I didn't have to lose another finger. 02:59 So there is a place for modern medicine 03:02 in dealing with chronic problems. 03:04 So, I guess the point I'm trying to make 03:06 is chronic disease affects the skin too. 03:09 Yeah. Diabetes is the big one. 03:11 You know, diabetes really affects 03:13 the blood supply to the skin, the nerves of the skin, 03:16 and it can damage the skin. 03:18 In fact, diabetics can have skin problems 03:20 and because their nerves don't feel it, 03:22 they get infections and they don't even know it 03:24 because they're compromised in their skin. 03:26 So those are some sort of things 03:28 that people realize it, 03:29 they don't realize is skin is very valuable to us 03:32 and sometimes we take it for granted, 03:34 but chronic conditions of the skin are rare, 03:37 but when they happen like diabetes or chronic trauma 03:40 or lack of blood, it's very serious. 03:43 You know, I guess one of the worst situations 03:45 I ever had with skin pain and issues. 03:48 I was a kid and I had poison ivy 03:50 and it got under my face. 03:52 And it swelled up my face. 03:54 I didn't know, I couldn't stop scratching it. 03:57 And it swelled up and so my eye shut 03:59 and it was pretty bad, not life threatening, 04:02 but it was pretty significant 'cause for some people like 04:04 it can be even worse than that. 04:06 We know there's all sorts of toxins 04:07 that people are allergic to. 04:10 I had a friend one time that actually was terribly allergy 04:13 to poison ivy and it got inside his lungs. 04:16 Can you imagine that inside his lung 04:18 and it was from a fire, they were burning poison ivy 04:20 and they got that toxin inside. 04:22 So, I mean, so the skin can have 04:25 a lot of different types of pain 04:26 and we had a few questions regarding skin 04:29 that we have to really get to, 04:30 before we run out of time here today. 04:32 That's right, these are the questions 04:33 that come in from the website at heartwiseministries.org. 04:36 And if you have a question that we don't get to today, 04:38 please go there and ask your question. 04:40 The first viewer ask, 04:43 "Can a rash be life threatening." 04:45 You know, I told you I had the poison ivy on my face, 04:46 that wasn't life threatening, 04:48 but can it ever be life threatening? 04:49 Yes, a rash can be life threatening 04:51 and usually a rash 04:53 is a gigantic immune response to some toxin. 04:56 So that's what, you know, sort of rash. 04:58 It might be an infectious toxin like the measles 05:01 and you know something up like that. 05:03 It might be like the toxin that you got with poison ivy, 05:08 the body responded with the immune reaction 05:10 just wants to get it well. 05:12 But usually in big terms there's some reactions 05:15 that turn on the immune system, the entire immune system 05:18 and the entire body gets a rash. 05:21 Those are very serious 05:23 when all the parts of you get a rash 05:25 because then the skin can't do its job 05:27 because there's no skin to do its job. 05:29 It's all rashed up entire body. 05:32 And there's a couple of ones that are out there, 05:34 they're all immune system, 05:35 one is called pemphigus vulgaris, 05:38 big name, you know, vulgaris that sounds bad 05:41 but it's based in autoimmune affecting the entire skin, 05:44 a rash on the entire body. 05:46 Sometimes certain antibiotic like reactions, you know, 05:50 you have a reaction to medication, 05:54 antibiotics like sulphur, Dilantin sometimes causes this, 05:58 certain viruses Epstein-Barr, cytomegalovirus, 06:02 they trigger this immune responses 06:04 that entire this reaction we called that 06:06 a Stevens-Johnson syndrome, 06:08 where the entire body ends up in a rash, 06:11 that can be life threatening 06:12 because you can't regulate infections, 06:15 you can't deal with your thermoregulatory, 06:17 and of course it's very, very uncomfortable. 06:20 Sometimes after a person gets a bone marrow transplant 06:24 or gets, you know, certain medicines, 06:26 they can have that, certain staph infections, 06:29 they're like a toxic, you know, 06:30 toxin reaction to staph infections, 06:32 toxic shock syndrome, but the bottom-line is 06:35 whenever a rash, whatever triggers it, 06:38 it covers large surface areas 06:40 that can be dangerous just like burns. 06:42 If you get a sunburn that does your entire body, 06:45 that's dangerous. 06:46 If you're in a fire that damages 06:48 your whole body, that's dangerous. 06:50 If you get poison ivy that damages a lots of skin, 06:53 that's dangerous. 06:54 Now if you get ticks or bites all over your body, 06:56 that could be dangerous 06:58 because it hurts large amount of your skin. 07:00 Your skin can't do its job 07:01 which is primarily keep toxins away, 07:04 regulate temperature, those important things. 07:06 And when it can't do your job, bad things can happen to you. 07:09 So what would you say is the appropriate action, 07:11 if you get a rash that you can't identity 07:13 or you get a rash that seems to be 07:15 larger than you think you can deal with? 07:17 Who do you go see? 07:19 Well, you know, a family physician can-- 07:21 And many of the rashes are self limiting, 07:23 you know, they don't-- 07:25 The doctor will come in, you will say, 07:26 oh, I have a rash and he will say well, 07:28 were you exposed to a toxin, were you outside, 07:30 did something bite you, they look for a bug bite. 07:33 And if it's not covering a large part of your body, 07:36 we know it's not gonna cause much damage. 07:38 You know the vitals are stable. 07:39 We might get in some local cream 07:41 and it's pretty much the body takes care of itself. 07:44 But in all these other 07:45 where it covers large parts of your body, 07:48 then that suggest a systemic reaction 07:51 and then just a history and physical, 07:53 you know, where you're around a drug 07:54 that you were exposed to that could have done this. 07:57 You know, did you have a recent medication 08:00 that could have damaged your entire skin, 08:02 those type of things. 08:04 If we still don't know, sometimes we go to, 08:06 refer to a specialist in skin to dermatologist. 08:10 And the dermatologist might take a biopsy 08:13 and from his experience because, of course 08:15 that's all he sees all day along is skin problems, 08:18 so he is an expert at skin 08:19 just like people come to me all the time with chest pain. 08:22 So I'm pretty good at sorting through chest pain. 08:24 Well, they are doggone good at sorting through rashes 08:27 and skin type problems. 08:29 So when you go to them, they sort of sort through, 08:30 but there are so many skin rashes 08:33 that are usually infections or some type of toxic agent 08:36 where the body responding to some type of stimuli 08:41 that turns on the immune system. 08:42 Right. 08:44 We got another question that's come in. 08:45 What are some natural treatments for skin-- 08:47 Skin conditions? Yeah. 08:48 We talked about the best one 08:50 and I might get a glass of water. 08:51 Little sip of high quality H2O right there. 08:53 High quality H2O. Nothing in, just pure water. 08:56 That's good 'cause that gives 08:58 the skin the things that it needs. 09:00 What else the skin's need? 09:01 You know, a lot of times when we have a skin problem, 09:04 unless it's a cancer or serious systemic problem, 09:08 it usually runs its course, okay. 09:11 You know, if it's an infection, 09:13 you want to treat the infection, 09:15 if it's due to a medication, 09:16 you want to remove the medication 09:17 and support the body with IV fluids 09:20 and whatever it needs 09:21 until you get over the rough spot. 09:23 But some naturals-- for instance for skin pain. 09:26 How about, we talked about sunburns, you know. 09:29 Anything, you know, of course, you know, we talk about, 09:31 you know, we don't want to get it, 09:33 so we put in our skin protection sunscreen, 09:35 but we also-- 09:37 Aloe vera is a very nice easy thing 09:39 that's on the skin, some even put some lidocaine in, 09:42 so it sooths the skin, so it doesn't hurt as much. 09:45 That's something that's good for skin pain. 09:48 Sometimes just resting your skin 09:50 is good for skin pain, getting clothed off the skin, 09:54 letting the skin breath is good for skin pains. 09:59 Some people for natural remedy they use willow bark. 10:02 Willow bark is an anti-inflammatory, 10:06 you know, aspirin, willow bark is an anti-inflammatory. 10:09 And whenever the skin is turning red, 10:11 we know there's inflammation, so this might help. 10:13 Anything that helps with inflammation 10:15 might help with that. 10:16 So ginger might help with that. 10:18 Turmeric which helps in inflammation 10:20 would help that type of pain. 10:23 Overseas in Europe 10:25 they use a natural substance called devil's claw. 10:28 They use that, they use devil's claw 10:29 sort of natural substance to help that. 10:31 Anything that helps the overall cells of the body. 10:34 Some people use magnesium they use that. 10:38 Some people use exercise 10:40 because it makes endorphins to help with skin pain. 10:43 Some people use massage. 10:45 You know how it is, you hits yourself real hard, 10:48 oh, it hurts, so what do you do? 10:49 You rub it, especially it's into the muscle, 10:52 you know, more muscle pain, 10:53 but massage is sort of a natural therapy 10:56 for skin pain. 10:58 In severe pain that short acting, 11:00 some people can take some type of Advil or anti-inflammatory 11:03 to get them over the hub until the body heals itself. 11:07 But remember most of these treatments 11:09 for acute skin pain is to sort of make you feel better 11:14 because pain itself is not good as we discussed 11:17 until your body can heal itself. 11:19 Now, for chronic skin pain, 11:21 conditions like cancer that's causing it, 11:24 other diseases that are causing it, 11:26 infections, lack of blood supply 11:28 or damage to nerves from diabetes, 11:30 then you want to get at the underlying cause 11:33 in addition to what's causing the pain. 11:35 So that sort of gives them everyone a general 11:37 or there are some natural things 11:39 that they can do to help with their skin. 11:41 I think Aloe vera really works good for just little rashes. 11:44 Some people, if it's bug bites, 11:46 okay, I've seen people like to use charcoal poultices. 11:49 You know, it helps pull out the poisons, 11:51 so the nerve isn't turned on as much, 11:53 so there's not as much pain as well. 11:55 You know, I've also seen if it's a bug bite 11:57 and it's hurting some people like to drain it, okay. 12:01 Now, some people have-- 12:03 We didn't even talk about this cause of skin pain 12:05 but acne, that can cause a lot of skin pain too, 12:10 especially in teenager so, you know, 12:12 the treatment for that is to remove oil 12:14 from the body and keep the skin clean, 12:16 keep the pores open. 12:18 And those are all sort of things 12:20 that can help with chronic skin conditions in the face. 12:23 Yeah, we've got one last question here, 12:26 talking about pharmaceutical treatments 12:28 and also the cancer cause-- 12:33 the pain caused by cancer, through cancer? 12:35 Skin cancer can cause pain and sometimes, you know, 12:37 of course the treatment is to get rid of the cancer, 12:40 cut it out, okay. 12:41 We talked about some of the characteristics 12:43 of skin cancers, irregular border, 12:46 change in color, raise, growing. 12:48 Some of the pharmaceutical treatments 12:50 we've also mentioned anything that's nonsteroidal can help. 12:54 Sometimes the pain is just really, really killing you. 12:56 We can numb it up with an injection, 12:59 lidocaine you know before procedure especially, 13:02 you know, you cut yourself with trauma, 13:04 you know, you need some stitches to sew it together. 13:06 Well lidocaine can numb the nerves 13:08 so you can sew it together, so it doesn't hurt. 13:11 Some people that has severe pain 13:13 that from medical condition sometimes they have TENS units 13:17 that sometimes help chronic pains. 13:19 In rare instances we might, if the inflammation of the skin 13:23 is real bad especially these rashes 13:25 that cover the entire body. 13:26 Sometimes we use some steroids 13:28 because the inflammation is so bad, 13:31 the inflammation itself is life threatening, 13:32 so sometimes we do that. 13:34 And in some people need a short course of narcotics, 13:37 if they have one of these bad skin reaction pains, 13:39 but I didn't say for long term, 13:41 just to knock down the pain, so that they can get 13:43 at the cause whether it be inflammation, 13:45 so the body will heal itself. 13:47 Yeah. Yeah. 13:48 Well, that's a lot of good information about skin pain. 13:50 And if you've been watching the program at home 13:52 and you have more questions, please visit our website 13:54 at heartwiseministries.org 13:56 and you can ask your question there. 13:57 You can leave a prayer request 13:59 or you can see other information on health 14:01 that Dr. Marcum has presented. 14:03 And we'll be back in just a moment 14:04 as Dr. Marcum closes with prayer. 14:14 I bet you didn't think we could talk so long 14:17 about skin pain, but skin pain is a real issue 14:20 that many people suffer from 14:22 and it never hurts to learn a little bit 14:23 more about skin. 14:25 I want to pray for you today that God will provide us 14:28 with the ultimate healing we all see. 14:30 Let's bow our heads together. 14:32 Heavenly Father as we once again learn 14:34 how to take care of our bodies. 14:35 We want to thank you for being our ultimate physician 14:38 who has promised to help us 14:40 one step at a time into healing. 14:41 And thank you for being with each one of us today. 14:43 And if there's someone out there Father 14:45 that needs special prayer, we want you to be 14:48 a especially close to them. 14:49 We want to pray that you would be with them. 14:51 Thank you for bringing us here together 14:53 as a family is our prayer. 14:55 Amen. 14:57 Well, I hope no one out there has skin pain, 15:01 but if you do, you know a little bit more 15:02 that will help you. 15:04 If you have more questions, visit the website 15:06 heartwiseministries.org. 15:08 And I'm Dr. James Marcum wishing you the best of health. |
Revised 2016-04-21