DermHelpCentral

Overview of Brachioradial Pruritus (2017)

This is a good 2017 overview of Brachioradial Pruritus, Yosipovitch
It is by an academic dermatology with special expertise in itch and it appeared in a throwaway.

Dr. Yosipowitch's article brings one up to date with the current knowledge. To access it: Download Brachioradial Pruritus

Here is another overview of BRP that I posted ~ 3 years ago.

How to Be Mindful in the Doctor's Office

By David Gelles, NY Times, MAY 3, 2017

“Life presents us with this quandary: When we most need to communicate effectively, we are often filled with anxiety. When we are reactive to anxious states, we tend to shut down, act impulsively or crave solace. None of these responses helps us work with our doctors. To have a better experience — to ask the difficult question, share a moment of vulnerability or discuss symptoms — start by being mindful.” – Lee Rosen, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont

• Before you enter the doctor’s office, pause at the door and take two deep breaths, count slowly to three on both the inhalation and the exhalation.
• Once seated in the waiting room, take a moment to focus on your breathing, counting to 10.
• Look inward with complete acceptance, noting why you came to the doctor. Are you worried or scared? Are you in pain?
• If you are, permit yourself to have these feelings. Understand that there’s nothing you are supposed to do about these feelings right now. Just let them be. That is why you are here.
• In the examination room, notice the cool air, the bright lights and the feeling of your feet dangling as you sit on the table.
• Acknowledge the universality of sickness and mortality. Often we feel our suffering isolates us and takes us out of the present moment.
• But since suffering is inevitable, it is also an experience we share with everyone else. Allow yourself to feel that connection.
• Take another deep breath and commit to sharing with the nurse or the doctor what they need to know to help you.

Traditional Philippine Tattoo Tradition

Buscalan, Philippines — She wakes up every morning at dawn and mixes an ink out of pine soot and water. She threads a thorn from a bitter citrus tree into a reed, crouches on a three-inch-high stool and, folded up like a cricket, hand-taps tattoos onto the backs, wrists and chests of people who come to see her from as far away as Mexico and Slovenia.

The woman, Maria Fang-od Oggay, will finish 14 tattoos before lunch — not a bad day’s work for someone said to be 100 years old. Moreover, she has single-handedly kept an ancient tradition alive, and in the process transformed this remote mountaintop village into a mecca for tourists seeking adventure and a piece of history under their skin.

See NY TImes article. May 16, 2017