Your skin changes as you get older. Many factors influence this change, including sun exposure, genetics, age, and your choice of skin care.

Your skin changes as you get older. Many factors influence this change, including sun exposure, genetics, age, and your choice of skin care.

Your skin changes as you get older. Many factors influence this change, including sun exposure, genetics, age, and your choice of skin care.

Like many New Yorkers, I had seen an occasional tattoo while growing up and wondered about the origin of the art, but not until performing medical service in the military did I see tattoos through a professional eye. When servicemen came into the Dermatology Clinic for examinations, I’d ask them about their tattoos. Mother, God and Country dominated the imagery for GI’s at that time. Their tattoos were a subject of conversation rather than the reason for an office visit. Then, when patients from tropical stations began presenting a variety of uncomfortable reactions in their tattoos — which various treatments did not help — I began searching to find the cause and cure for the 27 soldiers, sailors and marines who were affected.

This study took three years of research. Simply stated, commercial yellow pigment, when mixed with red, triggers allergic reactions in some tattoos exposed to sunlight. One solution for the servicemen’s troublesome tattoos was to use a physical sun block. The late, great comedian Henny Youngman might have joked: If your tattoo itches in the sunshine when your shirt’s off —don’t take your shirt off! But wearing a shirt at the beach defeats the purpose of showing off tattoos, just like using the thick white sun barrier, that life guards apply to their noses, would if you covered tattoos with it.

When a man is diagnosed with carcinoma of the prostate, his first reaction is one of fear. Primarily, his fear is that therapy will drastically alter his life by diminishing his urinary and sexual function. As a patient seeks treatment alternatives, he is faced with a myriad of choices, from various kinds of surgery to various kinds of radiation, and even things such as cryotherapy or Hifu. Standard radiation therapy involves 45 treatments, giving very small localized doses to the prostate with something called “intensity modulated radiation” or IMRT. Patients also have a choice of getting seed implantation.