viewers often contact us with all kinds
of medical questions
when Monica emailed us about her mystery
condition we knew we had help so we sent
her to dermatologist dr. Sonia Batra to
find some answers I've had friends ask
me what you will have underneath my arms
and you know try to explain to them I'm
not really sure what it is it's not
contagious but so far nothing has made
it go away about five years ago I
noticed a small rash underneath my arms
almost looking like skin tags they're
red and brown they start almost up here
and go pretty far down then I start
noticing other bumps in my bikini area
they're quite bright red my wardrobe is
it's really difficult I wear a lot of
long-sleeve shirts even during the
summer months my arms are always near my
body especially if I'm wearing something
that's sleeveless I really try to kind
of adjust myself where nobody sees
what's going on that's where I could use
different options to cover them up even
makeup it could be concealer it could be
foundation I've seen three different
dermatologists and nothing so far seems
to be working I feel very hopeless than
frustrated because the areas have grown
a lot over the years mine works for that
yeah it will never go away to meet you
as well
this is definitely a more pronounced
case and I can understand why it's so
distressing to her given how extensive
it is do they bother you or they itch II
or painful they don't itch they don't
hurt me it's more visual one of the
things I want to do is a culture just to
see if there's any secondary bacterial
or virus or fighters the second thing
I'd like to do definitely is a punch
biopsy where we actually always take
like a cookie cutter so it'll mean
really look at the base of it there are
definitely a few different things that
can look like this but we just want to
figure out what's going on so we can
really tailor your treatment
Monica joins us with dr. Bhatia and
Monica have you ever had any answers to
what this might be I've seen a couple
doctors there have been no answers it's
kind of a mystery well you're with the
best now so actually it showed a really
unusual pattern of something called
granulomatous inflammation and that's an
inflammation that goes on for a really
long time and your immune system is
actually meant to protect you against
infection but when it's going on for
months and even years as in your case it
actually takes on a life of its own and
that's what's actually forming these
bumps so what we're planning to do is
actually a little bit different we're
going to use a laser which is a Equinox
fractional co2 laser we're going to do
that over a series just so that we can
really blend it and make it mesh with
the surrounding skin okay and then the
secondary thing is because there's so
much inflammation there the laser is
going to help us use anti-inflammatories
and cortisone to really absorb a little
bit better so not only do we settle it
and make it look better but we can
really keep it from coming back over I
know traffic
how are you feeling this that okay
you'll I can't feel anything and so what
I'm doing here is I'm actually taking
the fractional laser and just taking off
the top layer of skin very gently and
sort of a grid pattern but then what
it's also going to do is it's going to
open up that surface that barrier of the
skin so that the anti inflammatory that
we're going to prescribe can also
penetrate so we're going to give you an
antibiotic that will actually help kill
the bacteria so it doesn't continue and
I think the lesson we can all learn here
is if you're dealing with a problem for
such a long period of time sometimes you
need something like a biopsy to figure
out what's going on Monica you are on
the road to recovery
you