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Understanding The Difference Between Dermatitis And Eczema


Although every eczema is dermatitis, not every dermatitis is eczema. Dermatitis is a general term for irritated skin conditions, while eczema is a precised kind of dermatitis. Eczema is also known atopic dermatitis, but most physician prefer to entitle it eczema. When you study about dermatitis and eczema or talk to your physician about them, the terms will often be used interchangeably, which can cause some misunderstanding.

The Other Kind

There are two essential kinds of dermatitis - eczema being one and seborrheic dermatitis (seborrhea) being the other. You might realize this condition better by its slang name "cradle cap". Seborrheic dermatitis and eczema both make patches of itchy, flaky and blemished skin, but cradle cap affects mainly just the scalp of usually just infants, although it can pop up in adults from ages 30 - 60. For some reason, it appears to attack men more than women. The reason is unidentified.

Symptoms

Though dermatitis and eczema are not life-threatening skin disorder, they are very frustrating. You wish to scratch badly - but you know you shouldn't, as that will make the skin bad. So you tingle anyhow and make it worse, meaning you will soon feel terribly irritated all over again. Dante wrote regarding hell being separated up into nine layers, and on this scale dermatitis and eczema is a punishment from level two.

The main signs are like seborrhea, with big red patches of steadily itchy and flaky skin. This could beat at any age or sex of the patient. This at some moments is a secondary symptom of another condition. For instance, a lot of women in pre-menopause or menopause get eczema when they've never experienced dermatitis or eczema before.