Tinea Infection

Tinea infection is caused by fungus. There are many species of fungus that causes tinea infection, to name a few are trichophyton, Microsporum.

How tinea infection spread?

• Human to human. Ringworm often spreads by direct, skin-to-skin contact with an infected person.
• Animal to human. You can contract ringworm by touching an animal with ringworm. Ringworm can spread while petting or grooming dogs or cats. It’s also fairly common in cows.
• Object to human. Ringworm can spread by contact with objects or surfaces that an infected person or animal has recently touched or rubbed against, such as clothing, towels, bedding and linens, combs, and brushes.
• Soil to humans. In rare cases, ringworm can be spread to humans by contact with infected soil. Infection would most likely occur only from prolonged contact with highly infected soil.

• Hot humid climate
• Working in a hot humid environment  like cook, driver, sports person, labourers (mathadi worker), housewives 
• Obese, diabetic, weak immunity
• Unhygienic habitat.

An itchy, raised, a red, scaly, ring-shaped patch of any size can present over any part of the body but especially over the groin, seat, below the breast, in the armpit. Borders of the patch are usually raised, and the side of the patch is scalier compared to the center of the patch.

When fungus affects the scalp, it can produce a patch of hair loss; the majority of hair are halfway broken, sometimes matted in the patch. In kids, it may present as boggy swelling with overlying pus-filled spots and matting of hairs.

It can affect palm sole, especially webspace is commonly affected, and most of the time, it looks like a white raised macerated patch in webspace.

Sometimes fungus can affect nails. Infected Nail plates look more of brittle, fragile, discolored.

It is a clinical diagnosis, most of the time, doctors can diagnose this condition only on history and examination of patients, but few times microscopically examination of scraping may be required for diagnosis. 

There are topical and oral treatments available for fungal infection.

• Topical treatments are available in the forms of cream, ointments, lotion. The most commonly prescribed topical formulations are luliconazole, ketoconazole, clotrimazole.
• Oral medications are of azole class of drugs, to name a few are fluconazole, terbinafine, griseofulvin, etc.

These all drug has strong drug interaction with other medications and can affect their liver function, so it is always better to take this medication with the advice of skin specialist only.

Be sure to thoroughly clean and dry your genitals and upper thigh area with a clean towel after bathing, swimming, or exercising.

Correctly fitting clothes are essential, especially underwear and athletic clothing. Tight-fitting clothes can cause chafing in the groin area, and it can irritate your skin, making you more susceptible to jock itch.

If you have an athlete’s foot, you should treat it. Be sure to put your socks on before your underwear to prevent spreading the fungal infection to your groin area.

Make sure not to use other people’s clothing, towels, bedding, or other personal items.

It is essential to change your underwear at least once per day, or more frequently if you exercise or are prone to heavy sweating.

• Avoid self-medication- A large number of Indian patients tend to use medications on their own. Patients, most of the time, use inappropriate medications such as ringard, itchgard, sapat lotion, steroid creams. 

These all such activities have led to strong resistance to present drugs, and hence treatment duration and dosage of drugs have increased dramatically.

There is a strong appeal from our dermatologist or, in fact, from the medical public that patients should not self-medicate as it most of the time, it harms more than benefit.