Jock Itch and Tinea Cruris
How does someone know that they have jock itch? Well, aside from the extreme urge to scratch oneself because of the most intense itching sensation one can ever experience in their natural life (short of using itching power instead of baby powder) you can usually self-diagnose it by simply seeing the reddish or pinkish rash in and around the groin region. Under rare circumstances after seeing the recommended doctor you might end up getting a small skin biopsy which the doctor can use to reconfirm any suspicions that it is, in-fact tinea cruris. A doctor would generally go the biopsy route (a biopsy is when skin is surgically taken from your body after using a local anesthetic) in order to make sure that they’re not confusing your possible tinea cruris infection with another type of disease. Once they extract your skin they’ll examine it under a microscope to confirm their suspicions. In rare cases, where the fungal infection is widespread, the doctor will actually send off your skin specimen to a lab for third party testing. These laboratories uses special methods to examine the skin swabs to discover the infectious cause of the tinea cruris itself. Microscopic skin tests can also be used by utilizing potassium hydroxide to determine if the tinea cruris was cause by either yeast or fungus and because it can be confused with several other medical conditions a dermatologist may be needed to verify that it is jock itch. Some of the medical conditions that it [...]
