Actinic Keratosis

I officially have insurance now, and therefore, can afford to have some things sliced off my body, like this suspicious mole:

No, that's not Actinic Keratosis, but this is:

So my question is, how do you let something that starts out as a suspicious mole grow into a HORN? Seriously, when she first noticed the spot, maybe she didn't think anything of it, but really, you'd think she'd have thought to do something about it when she noticed that not only was it not going away, it was turning into something out of Legend.

9 comments:

Justin said...

This picture scares me, it's like the goiter section of my anatomy book... I hated that section. You should post some more to work this off your front page :)

BTW, I'm putting my link down there so it'll end up on google. Sorry for using you :)
Love!

Justin said...

Ah guess it doesn't show... it's just what clicking my name takes you to.

Raj said...

The horn is not actinic keratosis, it's called cornu cutaneum... both are overgrowths of kearatin, but actinic keratosis is usually this red, dry, rough, scaly plaque like thingie... that's a frickin horn!! :-P

Raj Amarnath said...

oops... keratin, not kearatin....

Anonymous said...

Actually, both Raj and Susan are right.
Cornu cutaneum, or "cutaneous horn" can occur in actinic keratosis, which is a patch of sun damaged skin that has excess keratin (see, Robbins and Cotran Pathologic Basis of Disease 8 ed p. 1178). Sometimes this patch of damaged skin really does form a "horn" that resembles the horns of animals.
While this post may seem random...it is. I am a med student studying for a test which includes skin cancers, and ran across this gnarly picture. Guess grandma really does have horns ^^
Best,
Ned from Albuquerque

Anonymous said...

It concerns me that people are so ego and culturally centric that they fail to conceive of other responses. Look at the photo of this woman. It is obvious it is an old picture - from the clothes perhaps from the 1940's? Look at the woman's face. Does she look like someone who has had an easy life and access to botox? Look at her age and the wrinkles of what is obviously a hard scrabble life. Visting Drs let alone dermatologists seems so obvious to you, yet many of the women living in third world conditions without easy access to medical help would still put up with this horn growing from their head. Why? because other options are simply not there for them. Most women in the world today still do not have access to readily available mammograms and many have fungating breast tumours which are horrific. Do they enjoy or choose this? No, its their life circumstances. Instead of poking fun at this poor woman's failure to get it attended to, start thinking critically about why someone would behave like this. Not everyone has the life of ease you know.

Unknown said...

I'd use "sasquatch itch cream"

Anonymous said...

i think it's fake

Anonymous said...

The reasons I would suggest this is a digital collage are as follows :
1.As has already been said, the picture appears to be very old, taken in the 40's or 50's. The colours lack the vibrancy, lustre, and tonal range of more modern film.
2. With magnification, one can see clearly that it is not a horn at all, but the tongue of a lizard, frog, snake, or similar.
Also, there are "jaggies" around the outline of the "tongue", consistent with it being a cut-out image that has been digitally superimposed on the face. These jaggies create a translucent white border designed to allow the two images to blend, thus giving the final result a more natural look when viewed from a distance. The other facial features do not have this border, suggesting that they were present at the original photo sitting.