Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Biopsy Taken

I saw the dermatologist today -- another likeable, good doc my internist found for me -- and she leaned toward thinking the weird white bumps on my right knee are either secondary milia or caused by foreign objects that didn't get cleaned up properly when I injured it.

To be sure, she went ahead and took a small biopsy of one of the bumps.

She initially was going to just take a shaving to look at it under a microscope to see if it was normal milia or not. But when I mentioned my mystery illness and that my rheumatologist was fascinated by the rash, she decided to take a larger biopsy that went deeper than a shaving would so it could be tested for autoimmune diseases. It would not be the first time someone got diagnosed with one of the autoimmune disease thanks to a dermatologist doing a seemingly unrelated biopsy.

The only annoying part is she put in a single stitch on the biopsy site because of the depth of it, so I have to go back for a 5-minute appointment to get the stitch out. The really annoying part is we're going to be at her office on June 12 for an appointment for my daughter, and I asked if I could have the stitch out at the same time, but it's two days too soon. Sigh. (I plan to have them look at it and hopefully for once in my life I'll heal quickly so they'll decide they can go ahead and take it out for me while I'm there and save me a trip!

Anyway, the dermatologist said that because of my mystery illness, she was going to send my biopsy to the best guy in town to figure out if there's anything else going on in it. It was nice to have her take it all quite seriously.

Other than that, we discussed the return of my childhood eczema, and she prescribed some ointment for me for that. She did the whole-body scan and commented on my lack of moles. :-) I've got a lot of freckles, but no real moles, which I guess is unusual in someone as fair-skinned as I am and who has been sunburnt as badly (and frequently) as I was in my youth. (I don't tan. And I've finally learned not to even try, but I think I was in my late 20s before it really sunk in.)

Yesterday's dental appointment was fine -- no new cavities, thankfully! But the dentist doesn't like the look of some of my older amalgam fillings. He recommended I replace one of them with a crown before it ends up breaking on me at some point. So it's going on my to-do list for when I have time, energy and money to deal with non-urgent health matters, like the sinus surgery I keep getting told I need.



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