September 4, 2025 • 23 mins
https://advanceddermclinic.com/mobile/
Mobile Office:Providence Park
580 Providence Park Dr. E
Second Floor
Mobile, AL 36695
251-631-3570
Mobile Office:Providence Park
580 Providence Park Dr. E
Second Floor
Mobile, AL 36695
251-631-3570
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
This is News Radio seventy ten WNTM, and I'm Uncle
Henry here with you once again on Ask the Expert.
On this episode of Ask the Expert, we're going to
talk with board certified dermatologist, doctor Thomas Bender of Advanced
(00:26):
Dermatology and Skincare Center, a forefront dermatology clinic. Advanced Dermatology
in Skincare Center has a team of board certified dermatologists
with locations of Mobile, Daphne, Baymonette, and Northwest Florida. You
can find out more about the doctors and the services
they provide by visiting their website Advanceddermclinic dot com. That's
(00:51):
Advanceddermclinic dot com. You can also make appointments on their
website or you can call for an appointment at two
five one thirty five seventy that's two five one six
one thirty five seventy to call Advanced Dermatology and Skincare
Center Now. This month at the Alabama locations of Advanced Dermatology,
(01:13):
they are offering opportunities to save money. You can save
two hundred dollars this month off of the mirror drive procedure.
You can save two hundred dollars off the neograft procedure
and also save forty dollars off Juvo while supplies last.
If you'd like more information, you can go again to
(01:35):
their website Advanceddermclinic dot com. That's Advanceddermclinic dot com. Now
let's begin our conversation with doctor Thomas Bender. This conversation
was recorded in doctor Bender's office in Providence Park, near
Providence Hospital in Westmobile. Doctor Bender, haro, thanks going this
(01:56):
month at Advanced Dermatology and Skincare Center.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Absolutely wonderful as all, and we finally made it to
the fall we did.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
We did fields like fall or it did and football season.
Excited about the prospects of your team's Alabama and Florida.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
I'm I'm very excited, a little bit less excited after
that Saturday, but you know, still excited.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Well, I went from excited to agitate it. So we
have that, we have that to look forward to. We
have fun of that as a distraction to talk about.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
It is.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
It is.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
It's a lot of fun. And look, they'll they'll, they'll
do well.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
We got a lot to talk about here with you,
doctor Bender. Before we go into anything specifically about dermatology,
we have new listeners every time that we have this show,
Doctor Burdrick, can you talk about one of my favorite
things about Advanced Dermatology, and that is that if somebody
wants to make an appointment with Advanced Dermatology and Skincare Center,
(02:50):
they do not have to wait long to get the appointment.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
No, we have, you know, grown over the years. I
mean when I got out of the military and came
back home back in two thousand and nine. You know
what I always used to it as a way we
did it in the military, which was, you know, every
patient had to be able to get in. I think
back then it was within thirty days, and I've kind
of tried to shorten that substantially because very quickly once
I was home, I mean dermatology appointments across the city
(03:14):
or six months out. So you know, that's just you know,
when it comes to that, that to me is not
high quality healthcare because patients need to begin and get
seen a timely fashion. So we've not only grown the practice,
I think now we have eighteen providers across two states,
six locations Mobile, Daphne, Baymnette, and here in South Alabama.
(03:36):
And then of course we have Niceville, Penama City Beach
and Miramar Beach over in the Florida Panhandle. And you know,
so in opening the new locations, it's also about making
it quicker and easier, you know, for patients to get
care so they don't have to drive you know, an
hour for an appointment. And that was also going on.
You know that folks were behind six months of mobile.
(03:56):
So we have patients driving from West Mobile over to
Ballwin County and even over to Florida to try to
find someone to take care of their skins. So you know,
I think that we've given patients you know, good options.
And I mean the last thing you want to do
if you have a skin cancer that you're concerned about
is wait six months.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Oh yes, and uh, people can make appointments online. They
can go to Advanced derm Clinic dot com and make
an appointment online, pick the date at the time.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, you can make appointments online. I mean, of course,
all the you know technology that we have at our disposal.
We've we you know, converted technology and electronmical records before
we give a mandatory over ten years ago. And so
now patients can schedule online. As we both mentioned and
but we also have you know, some people aren't comfortable
with that. You know, my dad for example, uh, he
(04:40):
just he just switched from a flip phone not long ago.
So you know, some of our patients still aren't real
comfortable with doing that online. And right we have live
people can answer the phone, you do, and make appointments
there as well.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
So again more info at Advanced derm Clinic dot com.
That's Advanced germ Clinic dot com. Now, doctor Mender, we're
we're recording this in your office in Providence Park in
Westmobile and near Providence Hospital. Do you also see patients
at any of the other locations? Are just here?
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah? So I'm here. I'm in Daphne, Okay, Daphne also
and also Baymonette, So those three locations, you know, I
started personally, you know, and it was when we first
started in Daphne. We were going there one day a week,
and then we partnered and merged with doctor bo Stanfords
practice there in Daphne, and now of course we're in
Daphne five days a week. I started going to Baymonette,
(05:31):
you know, reckon, we have those patients up that way,
and so I was going there once a month, and
now we have a clinic there, you know, two or
three times a week depending on the week. So you know,
we've definitely made a lot easier. Then we have a
couple of providers, one of whom, doctor Ronald Johnston, was
in the Air Force with me and somehow he got
he got the real I think it was the short straw,
but I mean he's living in Destin. Yeah, how did
(05:53):
that happen? So he's living in Destin and he and
he and he has a physician assistant that moved between
those three locations in Florida. So it's been real, we've
been real blessed and uh, you know, we're all working
really hard.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
To take care of patients again. More info at Advanced
Germ Clinic dot com. Now, doctor Bender, it's been a
few months since we've talked about skin cancer in depth,
and there's a couple of ways that you treat skin
cancer with Advanced Dermatology and Skincare Center. Thought the listeners
might want to hear a little bit in depth on
these these two ways you treat skin cancer. Uh, there's
(06:28):
something you do that I don't remember talking to you about.
So you can educate me as well as the listener
on this. What is gentle cure radiation therapy?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Well, so general cure is a superficial form of radiation
that you can treat skin cancer with. And so the
beautiful thing about that type of radiation is you can
only treat skin cancer. It doesn't penetrate deep enough to
treat anything. It also doesn't penetrate deep enough to hurt
anything else. So we use that for non milimum of
skin cancer basal sillin square as cell and it works wonderfully.
(07:02):
You know. We we patients come in for twenty treatments
over about six and a half weeks. It's about a
fifteen minute commitment, you know, for each one of those visits,
so not a terrible time issue for patients. And it's
really just an option to what has been the gold
standard in dermatology, which is most surgery. And we've talked
(07:22):
about that before. We'll hit on that here shortly as well.
But the patient comes in, you know, we have a
radiation therapist. You know, you basically put lead around the
area you're treating. We generally treat with five to ten
millimeter margins around the tumor, and she sets the patient up,
walks out the door. Pushes the button. Forty five seconds later,
the treatment's done, and it's it's painless in most situations.
(07:43):
You can get some sensitivity sometimes almost like a sunburn
in some areas, and the patients don't have to stop
their normal daily activities. They can keep working, they can
keep you know, going to their kids' games outside or
whether the parents or grandparents, and they really don't have
to change their schedule or their activity level while they're
(08:04):
having that treatment. And what I found is we had
a lot of patients who'd had so many skin cancers
removed surgically that, despite you know, the great results that
they were having, just going through that process again and
again and again, they just I call it surgical fatigue.
They just did not want to have surgery on skin cancer.
And I told them, so, listen, you know, it would
be really terrible to die of something that is perfectly curable,
(08:26):
I mean, with a north of ninety five percent cure
rate if you remove it. And that seemed to resonate
and so they're like, well, I'm not going to do that,
but I will do something else, you know, whatever you
can recommend, and this has you know, a cure rate
that's as close to surgery as anything else.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
So okay, so that's gentle cure radiation therapy. You can
find out more about that at advancedderm clinic dot com.
That's advancedderm clinic dot com. Now you also mentioned most
surgery something that what I've learned about it from you
is it's one of the great, one of the great
procedures in all of dermatology, with a tremendous success rate
(09:06):
with skin cancer. Tell the new listener, what is Moe's surgery?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
So doctor Mose, and this was decades ago. He was
actually a general surgeon who was trying to come up
with a better way to evaluate skin cancer after surgery
than frozen sections. And so what he wanted to do
is he wanted to look at the entire margin of
a tumor. So that way you get to higher curate.
Because when you do, if you kind of think about this,
if you take a piece of tissue and you bread loaf,
(09:33):
you cut it like a loaf of bread, you know
you're not going to be looking at the sides of
the bread loaf because you're just cutting into one dimension.
And so you get a high curate with frozen sections,
but not as high with mos because of the way
we cut the tissue, and so when the patient comes in,
we remove with very narrow margins. So this is a
tissue spearing method as well. Very narrow margins are where
(09:56):
around where we see the tumor and we take that tissue,
we make slides, we look at it as the way
I just mentioned as far as way we cut it
and make sure that there's no tumor there. If there
is tumor there, it's been mapped. So basically think of
it like a clock, you know, so we know where
the twelve o'clock margin is, the six o'clock margin, so
on and so forth. If there's a little bit of
(10:18):
tumor between twelve o'clock and three o'clock, well we only
remove extra skin in that area. So that again is
why it's tissue sparing. We're only taking barely enough to
make sure we've got clear margins with the tumor, and
then of course with a smaller with a smaller margin,
with a smaller tissue, less tissue removed when we got
(10:38):
to close it, we have a smaller scar, which of
course is critical in the face and many other parts
of the body, the hands, the general area the feet.
There's many critical parts of our body where this type
of surgery is not only recommended, but the insurance companies,
including Medicare, pay for it.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
And that's that's.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Really you know, where most surgery is. And we are
fortunate enough to have a great most surgeon. He has
a great team here in Advanced Hormatology and Skincare Center.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
And most surgery. Because it is so very meticulous and exact,
it does take a while to do it, but it's worth.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
It, it does. I mean, I tell patients, you know, to
plan on being here half a day and hopefully you know,
we disappointed that area, and they're not here quite half
a day. Most patients are probably out in a couple
three hours. But there are some patients with larger tumors
that have let him sit there for too long and
they have a bigger procedure, you know, And of course
those are really great patients. And even I mean, we
(11:36):
have a lot of women in their forties and fifties
and the last thing they want to do, even with
the best surgeon that can close a nose. We have
even have some patients who want to see plastic surgeon
in local We got great plastic surgeons we partner with
that can do a closure if a patient wants them to.
But even in the best hands, you know you're going
to have some sort of a scar into a forty
something year old lady or even a fifty something year
(11:58):
old lady. You know, they don't want to have knows
that looks like it had skin cancer on it, so
they sometimes will opt for the non invasive treatment of
superficial radiation therapy. That's, of course, image guided which is
what we have, which is the best form that's offered nationwide.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
At this point, you're listening to doctor Thomas Bender, board
certified dermatologist at Advanced Dermatology and Skincare Center. The website
advancedderm Clinic dot com now doctor Bender. Every month, Advanced
Dermatology offers people the opportunity to save money on different procedures.
This month at your Alabama locations, you're offering mirror dry
(12:37):
at two hundred dollars off the normal cost for mirror dry.
Explain to the listener what mirror dry is.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
So. Mirror dry is a great way to permanently decrease
sweating in the armpit area. Not approved of any other areas,
but It just absolutely works wonderfully for patients that are
having assessive sweating in their armpits. Basically, we up those areas.
We have a mirror drive as a machine basically that
(13:05):
uses microwave energy to heat up those glands and when
you heat those glands up, what you get is less sweating. Generally,
it takes one treatment. We have a very small percentage
of patients. You know, when I say small percentage, like
one percent or less, we're talking about two or three
patients in the last decade that have wanted a second treatment.
And what we do is we offer the second treatment
(13:26):
half price for a patient who thinks they need that.
So it's been wonderful. I just wish we had something
like mirror dry for the other parts of the palms
and the souls, especially because we get patients who complain
about that. We have medication that can help with those
other areas that we can't treat with mirror dry. And
so again, as it always comes down to, it's about, hey,
let's get together, let's have a conversation with the consult
(13:47):
and we can basically recommend the best treatment for each patient.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Well, so with mirror drying, see growing up here along
the Gulf Coast. I think of all of us sweating
a lot, but the people that are going to come
in for mirror dry this different from what we ordinarily
would do on a hot day. Right. They're sweating even
when it's not ninety five.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
They're sweating in the wintertime. They're sweating in an air
conditioned room, you know, and it really affects a lot
of their confidence. And also, you know, in those type
of social situations where you have a blouse on and
it's obviously ringing with sweat, and people are kind of
wondering what's going on because again, no one else is sweating,
(14:28):
and so that creates a lot of anxiety. And so
this is something that really should be covered by insurance
in my opinion. However, it takes to take care of it.
But unfortunately that's not the case of Mere Dry. But
we do have an option for patients.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Again, you can find out more at Advanced derm Clinic
dot com. Now this month you're also offering two hundred
dollars off the neograft procedure, and this helps people that
are losing their hair. Doctor Bender, please briefly explain neograft
to the new listener.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
So neografted is you know, the newest way of basically
doing a hair transplant. You know, the way that I
was trained golly nearly fifteen years ago in hair transplantation
over at two Lane in New Orleans, is you would
basically have to surge to remove part of the scalp
and then you know, you would sit there and meticulously,
(15:23):
you know, cut away one hair follicle at a time
from the scalp. And I can see by a look
on your face that that doesn't sound like a lot
of fun.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
It's it sounds painful. We all want to have that
full head of hair us men do and women do too,
But that sounds really rough cutting parts of the scalp out, Yes,
it is.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
And then you know when you sw that area together,
it's under a lot of tension, which winds under tension,
you know, don't do as well as we'd like them too.
And of course there's a scar there that then if
someone wanted to wear their hair really short in the back,
they can't do it because of the scar. And so
neographed completely different animal. What we do is we cut
the air really short in the area. We're going to
take the graphs from and we're talking about less than
(16:03):
a millimeter in diameter punch, so just enough to take
a hair follicle out. So it's these little itsy bitsy
holes that of course in the patient's numb that heal
within two or three days after the procedure. And when
you do that, you'll get one, two, three, or four
hairs in each follicle. And then that's how we determine
where to put them. You know, we use the ones
(16:24):
for up in the front to recreate the hairline, twos,
threes and fours behind that to thicken the hair. You
get you get a great result. You know, it produces
really pristine, perfect looking graphs and patients love it.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Okay, that is Neo Graft two hundred dollars off this month,
that Advanced Dermatology and Skincare Center and Real Quick Doctor
Bender this month, while supply is last forty dollars off.
Juvo what is juvo?
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Juvo is in the same class as botox. It's basically
just think of it as a competitive botox. I mean,
we have four or five options, and I think that
you know, Juvo and Botox are at the top of
the list. What they do is they basically make it
where you can't contract muscles of the face, facial expression,
and when you do that, you get f your wrinkles.
(17:10):
And so we use it primarily. See you're you're actually
making those elevens right now as we're talking, I'm making
an eleven. You're making eleven those two lines. You know,
that's an ALI. We'll give Allergan credit because they're the
ones who their marketing team come up with the elevens.
Because of course Alergan owns Botox, and so you can
inject those muscles that you're contracting.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
While I'm contracting them now.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
And I can make it where you can't contract them.
And we all we also say, you know, for the
guys out there who are like, oh, I don't want
to send my wife, you just spend some money on botox.
It will make her where she always looks happy. So
so I mean, and I think that that's valuable. And
so you know, because it will open the eyes, which
(17:54):
is a sign of youth and beauty and looking refreshed,
which is a really nice thing to do for your yeah,
your wife, And then you know, no matter what you do,
she will not be able to frown.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
That is a magnificent gift to humanity. Forget dermatology, this
is this is about all of humanity getting along with
each other. So find out more at Advanced Durham Clinic
dot com about Jubo and all these other wonderful procedures. Now,
doctor Bender, we have a few questions emailed in by
listeners every month. People ask about acne. So we've got
(18:28):
a standard acne question. This is from Rick Henry and Wesmobile,
and he writes, Doctor Bender, I've been dealing with really
bad acne since my teens and now in my forties
it's still flaring up. Can you explain why adult acne happens?
And what is my best bet besides over the counter stuff?
Thank you for any help.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
So a lot of times, you know, a lot of
forty somethings, especially and older, are doing some sort of
hormonal therapy, or they're taking some kind of supplement not
understanding that there's something in there that could mess with
their hormones. You know, I mean, like a protein. Some
of these protein powders, for example, will have different substances
in them. Other workout supplements will have subs in them
(19:13):
that can certainly change the testosterone levels, which can cause
more acne, and so you know, i'd first look in
your diet for things like that, supplements, et cetera. But
you know, of course we'd love to help. And sometimes
patis are like, look, I really need hormone therapy for
some other issues that are going on. It's made those
issues much much better, So I don't want to stop that.
(19:36):
Can you still help me? In the answers, yes, we
can definitely help, you know, help with the skin because
that is a side effect of hormonal therapy, both for
men and for women. So that's probably the first thing
that you're going to need to take a look at.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Okay, we have time for one more question, and by
the way, if you'd like to email questions in for
Doctor Bender, you can email them to me Uncle Henry
at iHeartMedia dot com. That's Okle Henri ad iHeartMedia dot com.
Our final question here is from Paton Nelly of Midtown Mobile,
who writes, Doctor Bender, I've been regretting a tattoo from
my youth for about three years now. How does laser
(20:10):
tattoo removal work and does the removal leave scars? Thank you?
Speaker 2 (20:17):
So essentially what's happening is we have a certain wavelength
that's going after a certain color. So one wavelength goes
after a certain color, and we have all the wavelengths.
And when you do that, you're essentially breaking up that
pigment using that heat. And then when we break up
the pigment, then the body comes in over a two
month period, removes a pigment and that's where the tattoo
(20:38):
goes away. It is numerous treatments, or I should say
it has numerous treatments that are required to remove a tattoo.
Hard for us to predict. I always tell patients in
the studies with our current laser, it's five to eight
treatments and that's about that's the best you can get. Now,
we have patients with a black ink tattoo that are
loving it after three treatments. Sure do we have some
(21:01):
patients who need more than that prescribed eight treatments because
maybe their tattoo artists went a little deeper, maybe they
just use a little more ink, whatever the reason. You know,
it could take longer. But most patients and we see
no scarring. You can get a little bit of discoloration,
especially the longer the tattoo is there, you know, affecting
the sun and things of that nature. I think, you know,
(21:21):
you have a little bit of shadowing that lasts, you know,
maybe for a few months after the treatment's done. But
the patients were really excited and happy because a lot
of patients, if they could just get sixty or seventy
percent reduction in it, you know, then they can kind
of feel more comfortable that it's harder to see and
that people just aren't gonna see it. And so we
we've had a lot of patients, I mean, like this
(21:42):
is probably our third or fourth generation laser that we've had,
Pico laser, which is the most advanced laser you can
you can come by. When I first had and added
that laser to the practice over ten years ago, we
were the only one Alabama that had it, and we
literally had patients coming for three or four states to
have treatment with that. And we've continually upgraded that laser
(22:03):
over the years, and so we're still excited that we
can do that for a patient because a lot of
these were kind of you know, judgment calls. At the time.
It seemed like a good idea at the time, but
then we kind of over the years, you know, it
becomes not as good an idea you know, we've got
because we go from being kids to you know, being parents,
(22:24):
and I think a lot of folks come in they're like,
you know, I don't It doesn't really bother me or anything,
but I just don't want, you know, to sit here
and have to explain these things to my kids. And
I don't want my kids to have one. So we
understand that we're here to help.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
You've been listening to Board certified dermatologist doctor Thomas Bender
with Advanced Dermatology and Skincare Center, a forefront dermatology clinic.
Advanced Dermatology and Skincare Center has a team of Forard
certified dermatologists with locations of Mobile, Daphne, Bay Manette, and
Northwest Florida. You can call them make an appointment at
(22:56):
two five one six three one thirty five seventy that's
two five one six three one thirty five seventy, or
find more information online at advancedderm Clinic dot com. That's
Advanced Drmclinic dot com.
This is News Radio seventy ten WNTM, and I'm Uncle
Henry here with you once again on Ask the Expert.
On this episode of Ask the Expert, we're going to
talk with board certified dermatologist, doctor Thomas Bender of Advanced
(00:26):
Dermatology and Skincare Center, a forefront dermatology clinic. Advanced Dermatology
in Skincare Center has a team of board certified dermatologists
with locations of Mobile, Daphne, Baymonette, and Northwest Florida. You
can find out more about the doctors and the services
they provide by visiting their website Advanceddermclinic dot com. That's
(00:51):
Advanceddermclinic dot com. You can also make appointments on their
website or you can call for an appointment at two
five one thirty five seventy that's two five one six
one thirty five seventy to call Advanced Dermatology and Skincare
Center Now. This month at the Alabama locations of Advanced Dermatology,
(01:13):
they are offering opportunities to save money. You can save
two hundred dollars this month off of the mirror drive procedure.
You can save two hundred dollars off the neograft procedure
and also save forty dollars off Juvo while supplies last.
If you'd like more information, you can go again to
(01:35):
their website Advanceddermclinic dot com. That's Advanceddermclinic dot com. Now
let's begin our conversation with doctor Thomas Bender. This conversation
was recorded in doctor Bender's office in Providence Park, near
Providence Hospital in Westmobile. Doctor Bender, haro, thanks going this
(01:56):
month at Advanced Dermatology and Skincare Center.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Absolutely wonderful as all, and we finally made it to
the fall we did.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
We did fields like fall or it did and football season.
Excited about the prospects of your team's Alabama and Florida.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
I'm I'm very excited, a little bit less excited after
that Saturday, but you know, still excited.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Well, I went from excited to agitate it. So we
have that, we have that to look forward to. We
have fun of that as a distraction to talk about.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
It is.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
It is.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
It's a lot of fun. And look, they'll they'll, they'll
do well.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
We got a lot to talk about here with you,
doctor Bender. Before we go into anything specifically about dermatology,
we have new listeners every time that we have this show,
Doctor Burdrick, can you talk about one of my favorite
things about Advanced Dermatology, and that is that if somebody
wants to make an appointment with Advanced Dermatology and Skincare Center,
(02:50):
they do not have to wait long to get the appointment.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
No, we have, you know, grown over the years. I
mean when I got out of the military and came
back home back in two thousand and nine. You know
what I always used to it as a way we
did it in the military, which was, you know, every
patient had to be able to get in. I think
back then it was within thirty days, and I've kind
of tried to shorten that substantially because very quickly once
I was home, I mean dermatology appointments across the city
(03:14):
or six months out. So you know, that's just you know,
when it comes to that, that to me is not
high quality healthcare because patients need to begin and get
seen a timely fashion. So we've not only grown the practice,
I think now we have eighteen providers across two states,
six locations Mobile, Daphne, Baymnette, and here in South Alabama.
(03:36):
And then of course we have Niceville, Penama City Beach
and Miramar Beach over in the Florida Panhandle. And you know,
so in opening the new locations, it's also about making
it quicker and easier, you know, for patients to get
care so they don't have to drive you know, an
hour for an appointment. And that was also going on.
You know that folks were behind six months of mobile.
(03:56):
So we have patients driving from West Mobile over to
Ballwin County and even over to Florida to try to
find someone to take care of their skins. So you know,
I think that we've given patients you know, good options.
And I mean the last thing you want to do
if you have a skin cancer that you're concerned about
is wait six months.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Oh yes, and uh, people can make appointments online. They
can go to Advanced derm Clinic dot com and make
an appointment online, pick the date at the time.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, you can make appointments online. I mean, of course,
all the you know technology that we have at our disposal.
We've we you know, converted technology and electronmical records before
we give a mandatory over ten years ago. And so
now patients can schedule online. As we both mentioned and
but we also have you know, some people aren't comfortable
with that. You know, my dad for example, uh, he
(04:40):
just he just switched from a flip phone not long ago.
So you know, some of our patients still aren't real
comfortable with doing that online. And right we have live
people can answer the phone, you do, and make appointments
there as well.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
So again more info at Advanced derm Clinic dot com.
That's Advanced germ Clinic dot com. Now, doctor Mender, we're
we're recording this in your office in Providence Park in
Westmobile and near Providence Hospital. Do you also see patients
at any of the other locations? Are just here?
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah? So I'm here. I'm in Daphne, Okay, Daphne also
and also Baymonette, So those three locations, you know, I
started personally, you know, and it was when we first
started in Daphne. We were going there one day a week,
and then we partnered and merged with doctor bo Stanfords
practice there in Daphne, and now of course we're in
Daphne five days a week. I started going to Baymonette,
(05:31):
you know, reckon, we have those patients up that way,
and so I was going there once a month, and
now we have a clinic there, you know, two or
three times a week depending on the week. So you know,
we've definitely made a lot easier. Then we have a
couple of providers, one of whom, doctor Ronald Johnston, was
in the Air Force with me and somehow he got
he got the real I think it was the short straw,
but I mean he's living in Destin. Yeah, how did
(05:53):
that happen? So he's living in Destin and he and
he and he has a physician assistant that moved between
those three locations in Florida. So it's been real, we've
been real blessed and uh, you know, we're all working
really hard.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
To take care of patients again. More info at Advanced
Germ Clinic dot com. Now, doctor Bender, it's been a
few months since we've talked about skin cancer in depth,
and there's a couple of ways that you treat skin
cancer with Advanced Dermatology and Skincare Center. Thought the listeners
might want to hear a little bit in depth on
these these two ways you treat skin cancer. Uh, there's
(06:28):
something you do that I don't remember talking to you about.
So you can educate me as well as the listener
on this. What is gentle cure radiation therapy?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Well, so general cure is a superficial form of radiation
that you can treat skin cancer with. And so the
beautiful thing about that type of radiation is you can
only treat skin cancer. It doesn't penetrate deep enough to
treat anything. It also doesn't penetrate deep enough to hurt
anything else. So we use that for non milimum of
skin cancer basal sillin square as cell and it works wonderfully.
(07:02):
You know. We we patients come in for twenty treatments
over about six and a half weeks. It's about a
fifteen minute commitment, you know, for each one of those visits,
so not a terrible time issue for patients. And it's
really just an option to what has been the gold
standard in dermatology, which is most surgery. And we've talked
(07:22):
about that before. We'll hit on that here shortly as well.
But the patient comes in, you know, we have a
radiation therapist. You know, you basically put lead around the
area you're treating. We generally treat with five to ten
millimeter margins around the tumor, and she sets the patient up,
walks out the door. Pushes the button. Forty five seconds later,
the treatment's done, and it's it's painless in most situations.
(07:43):
You can get some sensitivity sometimes almost like a sunburn
in some areas, and the patients don't have to stop
their normal daily activities. They can keep working, they can
keep you know, going to their kids' games outside or
whether the parents or grandparents, and they really don't have
to change their schedule or their activity level while they're
(08:04):
having that treatment. And what I found is we had
a lot of patients who'd had so many skin cancers
removed surgically that, despite you know, the great results that
they were having, just going through that process again and
again and again, they just I call it surgical fatigue.
They just did not want to have surgery on skin cancer.
And I told them, so, listen, you know, it would
be really terrible to die of something that is perfectly curable,
(08:26):
I mean, with a north of ninety five percent cure
rate if you remove it. And that seemed to resonate
and so they're like, well, I'm not going to do that,
but I will do something else, you know, whatever you
can recommend, and this has you know, a cure rate
that's as close to surgery as anything else.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
So okay, so that's gentle cure radiation therapy. You can
find out more about that at advancedderm clinic dot com.
That's advancedderm clinic dot com. Now you also mentioned most
surgery something that what I've learned about it from you
is it's one of the great, one of the great
procedures in all of dermatology, with a tremendous success rate
(09:06):
with skin cancer. Tell the new listener, what is Moe's surgery?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
So doctor Mose, and this was decades ago. He was
actually a general surgeon who was trying to come up
with a better way to evaluate skin cancer after surgery
than frozen sections. And so what he wanted to do
is he wanted to look at the entire margin of
a tumor. So that way you get to higher curate.
Because when you do, if you kind of think about this,
if you take a piece of tissue and you bread loaf,
(09:33):
you cut it like a loaf of bread, you know
you're not going to be looking at the sides of
the bread loaf because you're just cutting into one dimension.
And so you get a high curate with frozen sections,
but not as high with mos because of the way
we cut the tissue, and so when the patient comes in,
we remove with very narrow margins. So this is a
tissue spearing method as well. Very narrow margins are where
(09:56):
around where we see the tumor and we take that tissue,
we make slides, we look at it as the way
I just mentioned as far as way we cut it
and make sure that there's no tumor there. If there
is tumor there, it's been mapped. So basically think of
it like a clock, you know, so we know where
the twelve o'clock margin is, the six o'clock margin, so
on and so forth. If there's a little bit of
(10:18):
tumor between twelve o'clock and three o'clock, well we only
remove extra skin in that area. So that again is
why it's tissue sparing. We're only taking barely enough to
make sure we've got clear margins with the tumor, and
then of course with a smaller with a smaller margin,
with a smaller tissue, less tissue removed when we got
(10:38):
to close it, we have a smaller scar, which of
course is critical in the face and many other parts
of the body, the hands, the general area the feet.
There's many critical parts of our body where this type
of surgery is not only recommended, but the insurance companies,
including Medicare, pay for it.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
And that's that's.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Really you know, where most surgery is. And we are
fortunate enough to have a great most surgeon. He has
a great team here in Advanced Hormatology and Skincare Center.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
And most surgery. Because it is so very meticulous and exact,
it does take a while to do it, but it's worth.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
It, it does. I mean, I tell patients, you know, to
plan on being here half a day and hopefully you know,
we disappointed that area, and they're not here quite half
a day. Most patients are probably out in a couple
three hours. But there are some patients with larger tumors
that have let him sit there for too long and
they have a bigger procedure, you know, And of course
those are really great patients. And even I mean, we
(11:36):
have a lot of women in their forties and fifties
and the last thing they want to do, even with
the best surgeon that can close a nose. We have
even have some patients who want to see plastic surgeon
in local We got great plastic surgeons we partner with
that can do a closure if a patient wants them to.
But even in the best hands, you know you're going
to have some sort of a scar into a forty
something year old lady or even a fifty something year
(11:58):
old lady. You know, they don't want to have knows
that looks like it had skin cancer on it, so
they sometimes will opt for the non invasive treatment of
superficial radiation therapy. That's, of course, image guided which is
what we have, which is the best form that's offered nationwide.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
At this point, you're listening to doctor Thomas Bender, board
certified dermatologist at Advanced Dermatology and Skincare Center. The website
advancedderm Clinic dot com now doctor Bender. Every month, Advanced
Dermatology offers people the opportunity to save money on different procedures.
This month at your Alabama locations, you're offering mirror dry
(12:37):
at two hundred dollars off the normal cost for mirror dry.
Explain to the listener what mirror dry is.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
So. Mirror dry is a great way to permanently decrease
sweating in the armpit area. Not approved of any other areas,
but It just absolutely works wonderfully for patients that are
having assessive sweating in their armpits. Basically, we up those areas.
We have a mirror drive as a machine basically that
(13:05):
uses microwave energy to heat up those glands and when
you heat those glands up, what you get is less sweating. Generally,
it takes one treatment. We have a very small percentage
of patients. You know, when I say small percentage, like
one percent or less, we're talking about two or three
patients in the last decade that have wanted a second treatment.
And what we do is we offer the second treatment
(13:26):
half price for a patient who thinks they need that.
So it's been wonderful. I just wish we had something
like mirror dry for the other parts of the palms
and the souls, especially because we get patients who complain
about that. We have medication that can help with those
other areas that we can't treat with mirror dry. And
so again, as it always comes down to, it's about, hey,
let's get together, let's have a conversation with the consult
(13:47):
and we can basically recommend the best treatment for each patient.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Well, so with mirror drying, see growing up here along
the Gulf Coast. I think of all of us sweating
a lot, but the people that are going to come
in for mirror dry this different from what we ordinarily
would do on a hot day. Right. They're sweating even
when it's not ninety five.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
They're sweating in the wintertime. They're sweating in an air
conditioned room, you know, and it really affects a lot
of their confidence. And also, you know, in those type
of social situations where you have a blouse on and
it's obviously ringing with sweat, and people are kind of
wondering what's going on because again, no one else is sweating,
(14:28):
and so that creates a lot of anxiety. And so
this is something that really should be covered by insurance
in my opinion. However, it takes to take care of it.
But unfortunately that's not the case of Mere Dry. But
we do have an option for patients.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Again, you can find out more at Advanced derm Clinic
dot com. Now this month you're also offering two hundred
dollars off the neograft procedure, and this helps people that
are losing their hair. Doctor Bender, please briefly explain neograft
to the new listener.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
So neografted is you know, the newest way of basically
doing a hair transplant. You know, the way that I
was trained golly nearly fifteen years ago in hair transplantation
over at two Lane in New Orleans, is you would
basically have to surge to remove part of the scalp
and then you know, you would sit there and meticulously,
(15:23):
you know, cut away one hair follicle at a time
from the scalp. And I can see by a look
on your face that that doesn't sound like a lot
of fun.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
It's it sounds painful. We all want to have that
full head of hair us men do and women do too,
But that sounds really rough cutting parts of the scalp out, Yes,
it is.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
And then you know when you sw that area together,
it's under a lot of tension, which winds under tension,
you know, don't do as well as we'd like them too.
And of course there's a scar there that then if
someone wanted to wear their hair really short in the back,
they can't do it because of the scar. And so
neographed completely different animal. What we do is we cut
the air really short in the area. We're going to
take the graphs from and we're talking about less than
(16:03):
a millimeter in diameter punch, so just enough to take
a hair follicle out. So it's these little itsy bitsy
holes that of course in the patient's numb that heal
within two or three days after the procedure. And when
you do that, you'll get one, two, three, or four
hairs in each follicle. And then that's how we determine
where to put them. You know, we use the ones
(16:24):
for up in the front to recreate the hairline, twos,
threes and fours behind that to thicken the hair. You
get you get a great result. You know, it produces
really pristine, perfect looking graphs and patients love it.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Okay, that is Neo Graft two hundred dollars off this month,
that Advanced Dermatology and Skincare Center and Real Quick Doctor
Bender this month, while supply is last forty dollars off.
Juvo what is juvo?
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Juvo is in the same class as botox. It's basically
just think of it as a competitive botox. I mean,
we have four or five options, and I think that
you know, Juvo and Botox are at the top of
the list. What they do is they basically make it
where you can't contract muscles of the face, facial expression,
and when you do that, you get f your wrinkles.
(17:10):
And so we use it primarily. See you're you're actually
making those elevens right now as we're talking, I'm making
an eleven. You're making eleven those two lines. You know,
that's an ALI. We'll give Allergan credit because they're the
ones who their marketing team come up with the elevens.
Because of course Alergan owns Botox, and so you can
inject those muscles that you're contracting.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
While I'm contracting them now.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
And I can make it where you can't contract them.
And we all we also say, you know, for the
guys out there who are like, oh, I don't want
to send my wife, you just spend some money on botox.
It will make her where she always looks happy. So
so I mean, and I think that that's valuable. And
so you know, because it will open the eyes, which
(17:54):
is a sign of youth and beauty and looking refreshed,
which is a really nice thing to do for your yeah,
your wife, And then you know, no matter what you do,
she will not be able to frown.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
That is a magnificent gift to humanity. Forget dermatology, this
is this is about all of humanity getting along with
each other. So find out more at Advanced Durham Clinic
dot com about Jubo and all these other wonderful procedures. Now,
doctor Bender, we have a few questions emailed in by
listeners every month. People ask about acne. So we've got
(18:28):
a standard acne question. This is from Rick Henry and Wesmobile,
and he writes, Doctor Bender, I've been dealing with really
bad acne since my teens and now in my forties
it's still flaring up. Can you explain why adult acne happens?
And what is my best bet besides over the counter stuff?
Thank you for any help.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
So a lot of times, you know, a lot of
forty somethings, especially and older, are doing some sort of
hormonal therapy, or they're taking some kind of supplement not
understanding that there's something in there that could mess with
their hormones. You know, I mean, like a protein. Some
of these protein powders, for example, will have different substances
in them. Other workout supplements will have subs in them
(19:13):
that can certainly change the testosterone levels, which can cause
more acne, and so you know, i'd first look in
your diet for things like that, supplements, et cetera. But
you know, of course we'd love to help. And sometimes
patis are like, look, I really need hormone therapy for
some other issues that are going on. It's made those
issues much much better, So I don't want to stop that.
(19:36):
Can you still help me? In the answers, yes, we
can definitely help, you know, help with the skin because
that is a side effect of hormonal therapy, both for
men and for women. So that's probably the first thing
that you're going to need to take a look at.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Okay, we have time for one more question, and by
the way, if you'd like to email questions in for
Doctor Bender, you can email them to me Uncle Henry
at iHeartMedia dot com. That's Okle Henri ad iHeartMedia dot com.
Our final question here is from Paton Nelly of Midtown Mobile,
who writes, Doctor Bender, I've been regretting a tattoo from
my youth for about three years now. How does laser
(20:10):
tattoo removal work and does the removal leave scars? Thank you?
Speaker 2 (20:17):
So essentially what's happening is we have a certain wavelength
that's going after a certain color. So one wavelength goes
after a certain color, and we have all the wavelengths.
And when you do that, you're essentially breaking up that
pigment using that heat. And then when we break up
the pigment, then the body comes in over a two
month period, removes a pigment and that's where the tattoo
(20:38):
goes away. It is numerous treatments, or I should say
it has numerous treatments that are required to remove a tattoo.
Hard for us to predict. I always tell patients in
the studies with our current laser, it's five to eight
treatments and that's about that's the best you can get. Now,
we have patients with a black ink tattoo that are
loving it after three treatments. Sure do we have some
(21:01):
patients who need more than that prescribed eight treatments because
maybe their tattoo artists went a little deeper, maybe they
just use a little more ink, whatever the reason. You know,
it could take longer. But most patients and we see
no scarring. You can get a little bit of discoloration,
especially the longer the tattoo is there, you know, affecting
the sun and things of that nature. I think, you know,
(21:21):
you have a little bit of shadowing that lasts, you know,
maybe for a few months after the treatment's done. But
the patients were really excited and happy because a lot
of patients, if they could just get sixty or seventy
percent reduction in it, you know, then they can kind
of feel more comfortable that it's harder to see and
that people just aren't gonna see it. And so we
we've had a lot of patients, I mean, like this
(21:42):
is probably our third or fourth generation laser that we've had,
Pico laser, which is the most advanced laser you can
you can come by. When I first had and added
that laser to the practice over ten years ago, we
were the only one Alabama that had it, and we
literally had patients coming for three or four states to
have treatment with that. And we've continually upgraded that laser
(22:03):
over the years, and so we're still excited that we
can do that for a patient because a lot of
these were kind of you know, judgment calls. At the time.
It seemed like a good idea at the time, but
then we kind of over the years, you know, it
becomes not as good an idea you know, we've got
because we go from being kids to you know, being parents,
(22:24):
and I think a lot of folks come in they're like,
you know, I don't It doesn't really bother me or anything,
but I just don't want, you know, to sit here
and have to explain these things to my kids. And
I don't want my kids to have one. So we
understand that we're here to help.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
You've been listening to Board certified dermatologist doctor Thomas Bender
with Advanced Dermatology and Skincare Center, a forefront dermatology clinic.
Advanced Dermatology and Skincare Center has a team of Forard
certified dermatologists with locations of Mobile, Daphne, Bay Manette, and
Northwest Florida. You can call them make an appointment at
(22:56):
two five one six three one thirty five seventy that's
two five one six three one thirty five seventy, or
find more information online at advancedderm Clinic dot com. That's
Advanced Drmclinic dot com.
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