From a product??

[Trish2720]

   Four years ago I started using Kotex panty liners and one day, during early evening I notice some severe itching in a small female area.  I went to the doctor who gave me a cream to use.   The cream was like throwing gasoline on a fire!  Within 48 hours it had spread into my right groin.  I went to a dermatologist this time and he gave me a different cream and said it was from moisture.  I tried to tell him about the product but to no avail.   The new cream was worse than the last.  The bright deep red rash spread like wildfire and jumped to me right lower abdomen with in 3 days.
  It was spreading so fast it was scary.  My husband and I shower every morning and alway have so I was showering twice a day now and using the cream three times a day..   It just got worse.
  Finally after a week and a half,  this "rash" started eating through my skin (about the size of a quarter) on my right side.   I was really scared.   I found a new dermatologist and she gave me Ketoconalzole 2%.  It took me 4 months of showering twice a day and using the cream before the red spots went away.  
  That was 4 years ago.  My husband and I shower daily, every morning.  We've been married for years and this is our routine.   I have a surgical scar that it seems to like.   I've asked for testing, due to the incredible speed with with this thing spread, and the doctor has said over again; it isn't necessary.  (We have HMO ins.?)  
  The minute I see even a small red spot I have to jump on it right away with the Ketoconazole or else in a few days it all over.  And I still have a spot when it almost ate through my skin!!
  I can't find a description for this type of fungus anywhere.  There's no scaling or dryness, and no raised puffy areas.  Just bright very deep red patches that grow rapidly and spread within hours.
  What is this and should I find a way to get it tested.  

[Alan Rockoff, MD]

Oh, and even if you were somehow allergic to the Kotex product, that isn't a fungus and it doesn't set up some kind of permanent sensitivity that persists after you've stopped using it.

Dr. Rockoff

[Alan Rockoff, MD]

I don't believe you have a fungus.  Funguses don't come in the locations you mention, don't "spread like wildfire," and don't "eat through the skin."  I doubt that the ketoconazole is doing more than moisturizing your skin, the same a non-medicated moisturizer would.  I don't think you have anything to be scared about.  Showering every day is fine.  Just be gentle with the area, keep it lubricated, and don't worry that you have some strange infectious disease, because you don't.  I can't even think of any testing that would be useful.  If you're still concerned, you'll need to see a dermatologist again in person.

Best.

Dr. Rockoff