Atopic Dermatitis
Causes
and Aggravating Factors
Atopic
dermatitis is a chronic fluctuating disease, which may occur at any age. The
age of onset is between 6 and 12 months in the majority of cases. In most
cases, the disease is cured by the age of 2-4. If not cured by school age, the
disease persists into adult life. Some cases are now drawing attention in which
the onset of this disease is junior/senior high school age or older. When the
clinical features last until young adulthood, it is called adult-type atopic
dermatitis. This is a persistent skin disease characterized by a red face with
the additional symptoms of diffuse flush and wet erythema. It has been said
that atopic red face is a symptom of contact dermatitis caused by perspiration,
house dust, animal dander, or cosmetics. I believe that, in addition, chemical
sensitivity should be considered as a cause.
|
|||
Atopic Dermatitis |
|||
Causes |
Face |
None |
Total |
Dog dander |
|
1 |
1 |
Stress |
16 |
4 |
20 |
Cat dander |
6 |
1 |
7 |
Perm |
1 |
|
1 |
Shaving |
1 |
|
1 |
Pool |
1 |
3 |
4 |
Dust |
3 |
|
3 |
Hot spring |
1 |
|
1 |
Chemical subs. |
10 |
2 |
12 |
Cosmetic |
3 |
|
3 |
Flower |
2 |
|
2 |
Machine oil |
2 |
|
2 |
Air, water |
1 |
|
1 |
Plants |
1 |
|
1 |
Short of sleep |
2 |
|
2 |
Cutting oil |
1 |
|
1 |
Scratch |
1 |
|
1 |
Sunburn |
3 |
|
3 |
Agri.chemical |
1 |
|
1 |
Perspiration |
14 |
8 |
22 |
Irreg. style |
12 |
4 |
16 |
Unknown |
1 |
1 |
2 |
Club activity |
1 |
|
1 |
Drug |
1 |
|
1 |
Total |
85 |
24 |
109 |
As a school
doctor for a local junior high school with about 1,000 students, I conduct
internal checkups for the students every year. 7-8 students were diagnosed with
atopic dermatitis, which suggests that the incidence of the disease is 0.7-0.8%
for junior high students. Since the percentage gradually increases for high
school and college students and adults, there must be some social factors (such
as stress) other than allergic reactions. It is necessary to find the
aggravating factors of atopic dermatitis to prevent or treat it. I questioned
the atopic patients visiting my clinic who are junior high school age or older,
and investigated what kinds of causes triggered the atopic symptoms.
I divided
the data into two groups depending upon whether reddening of the face was
present or not.
Face = eruptions are
found on both the face and the body.
None = eruptions are
found only on the body.
The chart on the right
shows the results.
Discussion:
Patients
with atopic diathesis are sensitive to substances, which hardly affect normal
people. It is considered that pollen, ticks, certain foods, house dust, animal
dander, chemical substances; stress, etc. aggravate atopic dermatitis. Atopic
patients may feel itchy at the slightest irritation. The more they scratch, the
worse their symptoms become, and the function of the skin as a barrier is
weakened. As a result, the disease becomes more persistent. I have long been
stressing the need to find out the causes and the aggravating factors of atopic
dermatitis. This survey led me to conclude the following.
Causes
and aggravating factors of adult-type atopic dermatitis include high
temperature and high humidity, house dust, sensitivity to chemicals, sensitivity
to electromagnetic waves, perspiration, stress, cosmetics, irregular lifestyle.
Some of
the atopic patients I surveyed were hypersensitive to animal dander, although
this has not been recognized before. Students sometimes perspired a lot when
exercising, and long exposure to sunlight made their symptoms worse. In the
case where eruptions were found only on the body (without red face or facial
eruption), stress, perspiration and irregular lifestyle were found to be the
aggravating factors of atopic dermatitis. . There were many cases in which the
symptoms of junior or senior high school students got worse when they swam in
the swimming pool. I believe this was a case of contact dermatitis being caused
by a bactericide added to the water.
Patients
should attempt to minimize the aggravating factors as much as possible
.