Follow up to Genital Wart or Regular Wart Posting....on 9/6/05

[MakaveliMOB]

Dear Dr..

I am very confused and have great anxiety regarding skin lesions now. I left you a post, titled "Genital Wart or Regular Wart?" on 9/6/05 You might want to read that to know where my head is. Anyway, I had that lesion biopsied from who dermatologists call the Expert Dermatopathologist here. He diagnosed it as a Benign Keratosis. My dermatologist said that it was a Benign Keratosis. I asked him how I could of got it, and he said it was a genetic thing and I was just programmed to have it.

1 week later I started snooping around that area again and started looking very closely and i saw something very small close to where that other lesion was. It was little bump emerging from dry-like skin. I could stretch it out, and the bump out stretch out too, almost completely flat. But when the skin would scrunch up, it would show a tiny bump. The derm said that it was probably a skin tag, or a keratosis, he burned it. 1 week later than that, i started snooping again, stretching the skin in the groin, genitals, looking around. And a day or so after I noticed that i developed Folliculitis on the left groin area. I saw inflamed follicles with hair coming out of them, if the hair was not in them, i would probably thought they were warts, they were that inflammed, from the stretching of skin, etc. Topical cream was prescribed.

This week, i started snooping again, checking the area that had Folliculitis, and I saw something that was not there before. It was a small thin layer of skin that looked like it was on top of the regular skin. It was very small. And it looks the same as a sheet of paper on a table, that type of thinness if not thinner. It is white/skin colored. When the skin is stretched, to the point its going to tear, you can see little squares, kind of like an arial view of a city and streets...and this looks like one of those blocks, imflammed a little inflammed. if the skin is scrunched up, it disappears, and if lightly stretched in a direction, the skin lines will move in that same direction. It does not look like anything solid on the skin. Derm said it could be normal skin that when scrunched up maybe look weird, beginnings of a tag, or keratosis. No worries about warts.
Questions / Concerns:
Am I causing all these myself. I know that the first Keratosis was an area, i put a lot of pressure and contact, rubbing on, and I know Keratosis is a thickening of the skin, i am wondering if i could have caused that myself. And the thing i found now, is also in an area in which i rubbed a lot and stretched the skin a lot when looking at the inflamed hair follicles.

I mean this is like the 5 th biopsy ive had in that area, every little thing suspicious, ive had him take off and biopsy, regardless of his opinion. And mostly he has been right, i had a Tag, I had a Benign Acanthosis (bump on scrotum), I had a Benign Keratosis on thigh.

I mean am I over-doing it? Should I give up on warts?

Pls Help.
Thanks in advance

[Alan Rockoff, MD]

Yes, you are overdoing it, and yes, most definitely you should stop snooping around, rubbing the skin and examining yourself.  Your dermatologist, besides showing admirable patience, seems to be right and worth trusting.

Dr. Rockoff

[MakaveliMOB]

This is the biopsy report. My derm keeps trying to re-assure me and say if it were a Condyloma he would have stated it in the Differential Diagnosis, if he had any doubts.


Location:  Right Medial Thigh

Submitted is a single slide of shave biopsy material. The sections examined contain skin with an acanthotic epithelium with a mild chronic inflammatory inflitrate ans basilar hyperpigmentation. No significant cytologic  atypia or koilocytosis is seen.

Diagnosis: Skin, right medial thigh, focally inflamed benign keratosis.

Comment: The histologic differential diagnosis includes an evolving seborrheic keratosis.

[MakaveliMOB]

I also posted in the STD forum on 10/19.

Thanks.

[MakaveliMOB]

So do you agrea that my rubbing could have caused some of these skin anomalies?

So everything with the Biopsy okay? I am sorry I dont  mean to sound crazy just have a lot of anxiety about that area now, and about Genital Warts...I know that was on the thigh, but it did give me a scare.

Thanks.