THE NEW YOU BEFORE CHRISTMAS!

While we’re immersed in this season of gift-giving, what’s the best gift we can give to ourselves?

- GRACE CAROLE BELTRAN, MD

Being healthy and beautiful is one way we can celebrate Christmas with a bang!

Here’s a list of some of my happy, beautiful patients who got their Christmas gifts (that keep on giving) well before Christmas.

Janine, 20, has been my psoriasis patient for almost four years now. She started with me as a recalcitrant case of psoriasis (difficult to treat). She did not respond to the usual topical and oral treatments so I decided to put her on biologics. After the first injection, she was okay, but then she developed sudden reddening of the skin in several areas after the second injection so I shifted her to another biological drug as I was worried she might develop toxic epidermal necrolysis!

She did pretty well for two years until she developed koebnerization (lesions appearing at the site of injection). A few days later, new psoriatic lesions appeared again, surrounding the area of koebnerization. After a few more days, new rashes appeared all over her body. So I decided to do a skin test, which resulted in a drug hypersensitivity reaction. I then shifted her again to another biological treatment. So far, she is doing better now, and I hope and pray she does not develop another reaction to this drug.