If it quacks, it's a duck

Pampering used to be a luxury enjoyed only by the leisure set. Today, however, career people — both men and women — have learned to reward themselves after toiling it out in the salt mines. They relax by going to the spa, which are the most affordable in the world — even cheaper than Bangkok.

Part of a working person’s budget today is also allotted for skin and body treatments. In some Flawless branches I’ve seen cops buy skin products. They wait for their bonuses to avail of services in Flawless, where you actually get value for your money.

This quest to look youthful forever had engaged the public in a search for the best, but most affordable skin clinics and dermatologists who can be trusted with skin and body concerns. Treatments aren’t cheap — so get your money’s worth.

Last Thursday, I started sharing tips on how to spot a good dermatologist and I conclude this two-part series below:

• Submit yourself to a doctor who will enhance your features and not alter your face. Beware of those who promise you that they can make you look like Angelina Jolie with the full lips. We’ve already seen disastrous results — some even on celebrities. Flawless physician Margaux Cu believes that we should never change what God gave us. Don’t stay away too far from your original features or you’ll end up looking funny.

• Look for a doctor who will try to solve first existing skin problems before jumping to other treatments. “If a patient has pimples, your priority is to arrest that and not go into whitening treatments at once,” insists Dr. Cu.

• Stay loyal with a doctor who finds time to patiently explain skin management. An effective dermatologist is someone who will make you understand your own skin and how it works. Is your skin oily? How do you maintain that so that you don’t break out? A good doctor will teach you that so that you don’t aggravate the situation anymore and keep coming back to the clinic for remedies. The dermatologists who are true to their profession are those who get more satisfaction when they don’t see you often. That means you don’t have that much problems anymore and the treatments are effective. But get yourself checked up from time to time because age is a very tricky enemy. It just creeps in and your dermatologist can help you monitor the situation and delay the aging process.

• The best doctors are those who will point out to you step by step the how’s and why’s of a skin problem and how to solve it. I learned so much from Dr. Dorothy Carreon, who used to be with Flawless and continue to get info from Dr. Mary Joy Tarun, who has also done procedures with my skin (photogen, derma roller, skin fusion, etc.). They taught me so well that there had been times when I’d conduct unofficial lectures in Flawless clinics among patients who are willing to listen to me explain what certain procedures can do to a particular skin concern.

• Stick it out with a doctor who can help you with other medical concerns outside of the dermatological field. No, I’m not telling you to require your dermatologist to perform an on-the-spot open-heart surgery. If your doctor is good, you should be able to consult with him or her about ailments not necessarily related to skin — just basic medical concerns, of course.

Last month, for example, I was getting a skin treatment from Dr. Evelyn San Luis of Flawless Megamall when I realized that I had sore eyes — or was starting to have one. Immediately, she wrote down a prescription and I promptly bought the medicine from Mercury Drugstore. The following day, it was like nothing happened. Every time I get the flu, it’s my dermatologist I call up and so far I’m still alive. A good doctor will be honest enough to admit to a patient if the condition is beyond his or her medical knowledge. To me, that is the trait of a knowledgeable physician.

• Stay away from dermatologist who only knows how to treat pimples and acne. A derma who learned everything there is to know about this branch of the medical profession should be able to also treat skin asthma, eczema and the more serious skin problems.

At the moment, I am helping solve the very serious problem of a friend’s 15-year-old nephew who is going blind — no thanks to the ignorance of dermatologists from a popular hospital where patients should perhaps be advised to get extreme unction before even consulting doctors there for a simple case of fever. I’m not trying to make light of this, but I just want to stress how inept the people there are (so be careful) — from the physicians all the way to the parking attendants. Even its elevator system will raise the blood pressure of visitors out to cheer patients confined there. It’s actually the center for misdiagnosis.

Anyway, this 15-year-old boy had been suffering from skin asthma for five years now. What do the doctors there do? They pumped him up with steroids and now he is going blind in one eye and needs an operation to save his eyesight.

I consulted with the Flawless doctors and they are all of the opinion that steroids should be used with caution — all the time. In fact, I’m the only patient in Flawless and even in Belo Medical clinic who is injected with 100 percent steroids every time I have a pimple. But this is only because they’ve studied my skin and are aware that my pimples can be as stubborn as Willie Revillame during his failed negotiations with ABS-CBN.

However, I’ve decided to pass on the young patient to Dr. Nellie Jiao who does private practice since the kid can never make it during Flawless operating hours (he is a student and is only free very early in the morning). Besides, Dr. Jiao had already solved skin problems for me that was steroid-related more than a decade ago. A skin clinic that had its peak in the early ’90s kept injecting me with steroids until I developed steroid acne. It was Dr. Jiao who was able to detect what was the root cause — an overdose of steroids.

Dr. Jiao is among the best dermatologists in my list, except that she spends most of her time lecturing and raising two daughters and her schedule can never accommodate my erratic hours. When I first consulted with Dr. Jiao regarding the boy’s case, she was horrified that the doctors in THAT hospital administered steroids without caution. To begin with — she almost wailed — you don’t pump in too much steroid on a young person because that can stunt growth. When she said that, she had yet to see the patient. But she was right. The kid is only 5’2” — whereas his brothers are 5’9”.

And now, the poor boy is even in danger of losing his eyesight.

Yes, you should be able to determine what kind of doctor you have. There can be serious repercussions if your physician doesn’t know what he or she is doing.

I can only hope the pieces of advice I gave you would be useful in your search for good dermatologists. Mercifully, I am not yet — knock on wood — in that stage where I’ll be assessing the performances of cardiologists.

As a final word, always sharpen your intuition in your search for good doctors. Use basic intelligence to find that out.

If they quack, they’re not docs, but ducks.