The skin is also one of the organs of our human body. The skin not only has a barrier function, but also helps us to find some internal diseases, providing clues for doctors to diagnose the disease, and many diseases may have symptoms of itchy skin.
Systemic lupus erythematosus
Yao Ying, deputy director of the Department of Nephrology of Tongji Hospital affiliated to Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, introduced such a case. A female patient in her 20s went to the nephrology department and reported swollen eyes, swollen feet, and a lot of foam in the urine. After observation, the doctor found that she had less hair and butterfly-shaped spots on her face, and after questioning, the spots on the patient's face had grown for more than a month, and the sun was particularly itchy. Therefore, the doctor highly suspected that this was erythema that appeared when systemic lupus erythematosus affected the skin, and later the patient was diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus.
diabetes
The first major cause of itching in winter is decreased sebaceous gland function of the skin, and the second largest cause is high blood sugar. Poor blood sugar control is easy to itch, because if the blood sugar is particularly high, it will affect the elasticity and function of some microvascular, and the cellular metabolic function around the blood vessels will also be affected because of long-term hyperglycemia, the sensitivity of the skin will be stronger, and a little stimulation will lead to itching, such as alternating hot and cold, skin contact with chemical fibers, hairy clothes, etc. Are easy to cause itching.
There is a 70-year-old diabetic patient, due to poor blood sugar control and itching, at first can rely on scratching to stop the itch, and later, the patient described the itch as tens of thousands of ants crawling, life is better than death.
Kidney disease
Patients with advanced renal disease are particularly prone to pruritus. Under normal circumstances, many toxins in the body are excreted through the kidneys. If the kidney function is not good and the excretion function is poor, some toxins will be excreted through the skin. For example, when the level of urea in the body is as high as 250-300 mg/dL, these toxins will be excreted from the skin, like crystals, forming a urea cream, which deposits on the skin and causes itching.
In addition, kidney disease is not good, especially in patients who do dialysis, because of the need to strictly control water, the lack of water in the body, most patients will have dry skin, which will cause itching.
There are some characteristics of itchy skin in patients with kidney disease. For example, the urea secreted from the skin will form a slightly white cream on the skin, and sometimes there will be a slight odor of urea.
When skin itching occurs, the patient's kidney disease or hyperglycemia may have reached a very serious point, so it is necessary to detect and treat early.
Hepatobiliary diseases
Problems with the liver and gallbladder can also lead to itchy skin, such as primary biliary cirrhosis, cholestasis, obstructive jaundice, etc. This is because after liver and biliary tract problems, the level of bile acid in the blood will be particularly high, and some bilirubin levels will be particularly high, which will cause skin itching.
lymphoma
Others, such as tumors, especially Hodgkin's lymphoma, are also very much related to itching. After suffering from lymphoma, the patient's immune mechanism and resistance decline, and exogenous allergens can easily stimulate the patient's skin to appear itchy.
Even human anxiety can cause itching in the skin, which is called psychogenic itching.
Skin itching turns out to be associated with so many diseases. (Content source "Workplace Health Class")