Fungal skin infection
Case: A 57 years old female came to my OPD office with history of itching over the different parts of her body. On query, she has been suffering from polyarthritis, for which she took pain reliever like steroid in the forms of tablet and intramuscular injection from the village practitioner over last several years. She is menopausal for the last nine year.
She used multiple cream, ointment and lotion (most of them are actually high potent steroid preparation) for her skin lesion, but no improvement except transient relieve of itching.
On examination, she is obese (centripetal obesity), hypertensive and with the feature of hirtutism. There are multiple rounded or oval shaped lesion over the arms, legs, groin, axilla, under surface of left breast. On investigation, random blood glucose was 9.8 mmol/L. X ray spine showed generalized osteopenia.
Diagnosis: Taenia incognito
Observation: Fungal infection is highly prevalent in Bangladesh and it is less addressed by the patients. Patients are used to take medication from pharmacy as per advice by the pharmacy man or village practitioner which is very much disappointing for their health condition. Many potent antifungals including azoles, terbinafine are already resistant in our locality!!!