Question

A 31 year-old man who has worked for several years installing fiberglass insulation has developed itchy, irritating lesions on his wrists and forearms over the last several months. He has applied moisturizing creams repeatedly and has taken antihistamines but has experienced no significant improvement. He is understandably concerned about the potential effect this could have on his livelihood and has asked his care provider when treatment will resolve the problem. What is the care provider's most appropriate response?A) "A steroid cream will likely help, but often the skin problem lasts long after contact with the product that irritates the skin."
B) "You’re clearly allergic to the fiberglass in your insulation, and over-the-counter allergy medications are likely to resolve the problem quite rapidly."
C) "The problem is that your skin is producing and sloughing off cells prematurely; this will respond well to a topical steroid."
D) "There are medications I can prescribe that will cure this sensitivity, but they tend to take many months to take full effect."

Answer 1

Answer:

The correct answer is option A) "A steroid cream will likely help, but often the skin problem lasts long after contact with the product that irritates the skin."

Explanation:

Steroid creams are prescribed as palliative treatments because they help to reduce the level of skin's inflammation but they not attack the underlying cause of the inflammation. In this case, the 31 year-old man has being in contact with fiberglass insulation during several years, and he tried to use moisturizing creams with no significant improvements. Therefore, it is very likely that this palliative treatments are not enough to treat his problems which the care provider could summarize by the phrase "a steroid cream will likely help, but often the skin problem lasts long after contact with the product that irritates the skin".