Vitamins are considered as an essential part of human’s diet. Some time due to deficiency in one or more vitamin can leads to severe health disease. One such disease is Phrynoderma or Toad skin disease which is a common disease among children belonging to developing countries.
The word “phrynoderma ” has been coined by Nicholls in the year 1993, as the texture of the skin turns to be toad like. This disease develop due to excessive accumulation of keratin in hair follicle as a result rough cone shaped pappules form having their opening closed with white sebum. It is also called “Follicular Hyperkeratosis”.
Causes Of Phrynoderma
It has been observed that it is a primarily vitamin deficiency disease. While there are certain other reasons responsible for causing this disease. the major reason behind toad skin are-Sometimes the body become excessively deficit in certain vitamins like vitamin A, vitamin B complex and vitamin E, as a result the chances of this kind of disorder tend to increases. theses vitamins are considered to be absolutely essential for maintaining appropriate skin conditions. However, if a person tend to have excessive reliance on restricted calorie the chances of catching this disease tend to become more pronounced. This is the reason it is highly seen in developing countries where most of the population suffer from nutritional deficiency. Over avoidance of green vegetable could be another reason.
Deficiency in essential fatty acid is another causative agent in the conditions of phrynoderma. More importantly human need poly unsaturated fatty acid called PUFA for maintaining the appropriate functioning of the body. However if there is any kind of deficiency in their normal requirement . It may bring the diseased condition of “phrynoderma”.The other major causes behind this diseases condition is malabsorption due to nay medical surgery like colectomy, large intestine resection, pancreatic failure or small bowel bypass surgery. Alternately in some cases, heredity factors are considered to be the major cause of this problem. If this case has been reported by some member of the family in past generation, there might be the possibility that the genes may become responsible in transmitting it to the next generation.
Symptoms Of Phrynoderma
It has been observed that when hypervitaminosis is cause there is a development of symptoms like Night blindness and weakness. Other such symptoms of this diseased condition are glossitis, blepharitis, diarrhea and neuritis which may gets develop when there is acute hyperkeratosis due to vitamin A.
There is a drastic transformation into the color as well as the texture of the skin. Skin become highly scaly and itchy. However the nature of theses scales vary from patient to patient but, follicular plugging is a common symptoms in all the patient.
Treatment Of Phrynoderma
Medical practitioners should be highly careful while treating this condition. Before conducting a treatment the basic cause of the disease should be identified. Since the basic and preliminary cause of this diseased condition is malabsorption of vitamins. So an appropriate diet rich in vitamin A, E and B complex could be the right treatment in overcoming the diseased condition at av faster rate.
Food such as green leafy vegetables , yellow vegetable, whole milk derivative, fish, carrot egg , oils, nuts and unprocessed cereals are effective in achieving a good standard of health. However a sincere advice from doctor should always be sought to avoid any detrimental effects. A sufficient administration of Poly unsaturated fatty acid like safflower oil, could be one way to prevent its acute nature.
It can be taken in any form as an injection, in messaging or as in meal. Lotions like Bio skin treatment can prove to be an effective way to deal with the abnormalities of the skin. It is highly effective in reducing the blemishes from the skin and also ensure to inhibit the growth of new bumps. But the adoption should exclusively on the sole discretion of doctor.
Risk Of Phrynoderma
The major risk associated with this disease is the malnutrition result due to excessive deficiency of Vitamin A, and other concerned vitamin B complex. It has been observed that it is highly prone to the natives of developing country because the population intake of balance diet is pretty weak in those countries. However in most of the western condition the occurrence of this disease is quite rare.
Another major risk of phrynoderma is that it get transmit from generation to generation. The genes tend to get infected in such conditions. So for those families where already phrynodermic patients are there, the probability of upcoming generation to catch the disease get to be much high.