Q: All members in my family have a beautiful skin expect myself. My whole body is fair excepting my face, which is dull and has a constant black patch on my forehead, some parts of my cheeks. After I went on a holiday to goa in year 1990 and played in the beach for 5 days the whole colour changed and my face got terrible and other parts of the body returned to normal colour. Also I see small white heads closed eruptions on the face as tiny bumps and they are solid and cannot be removed. It stays for many months and they either disappear or fall off. I can feel a lumpy tissue of seed in the white head. Sometimes it comes over my eyelids near my eyes. I am scared to do anything as it may harm my eyesight. By nature I am cheerful person. Currently I follow a good diet with medium spices. I exercise regularly walk about 3 miles, play tennis and sweat it out, on a workout to lose my pre-pregnancy weight off. I drink 8 glasses of water everyday and am not constipated. I cleanse my face with a clear & clean astringent and apply a moisturizer. Also very cautions of apply the sun tan lotion and always avoid the sun. If I have to go out in Sun then I wear a umbrella cap and my walks and tennis games are exercised during early morning or late in the evenings. I apply a face pack, which my mom used to apply since we were children, a pack containing besan, rose water, turmeric, sandal wood powder and little multani mitti etc. How do I remove my face tan, which appear on my forehead like a band and on my cheeks? How to avoid getting those white beads on my face? What diet should I follow? What medication I need to apply so that helps me remove those white heads. As I live in the US where medical care is expensive, please let me know any medicine that does not require a doctors prescription? Any help will be deeply appreciated.

A:From your description it appears that you have either milia or molluscum contagiosum. However there is no substitute for clinical examination. One must remember that proper diagnosis is a prerequisite for good management. Extraction followed by cauterisation of the base will effectively deal with the problem. For this you will have to consult your local dermatologist. However, in some cases, molluscum contagiosum may resolve on its own.