Question: Hello Doctor, I have a serious scalp problem that started 15 years ago with a red ring at my temple. Half of the ring was exposed and the other half was hidden under my hair line. The rings are a little smaller than a wedding ring. There is hard crusty flaking, itching and when I scratch the thick hard flakes, there is red bloody painful scalp. The blood covers my finger tips after scratching and the blood saturates my hair. Over the next 15 years it slowly spread over my entire head, eyebrows and center of my chest (where the chest hair is the thickest). At times I can see red rings on my chest (perfect red circles). My family doctor gave me DurmaSmooth which helped at first but became less effective over time. I used stronger doses and different prescription steroid scalp oils over the years (tried 3 or 4 different ones - including DurmaSmooth and Ketaconazole in different strengths). I am presently using Fluocinolone Acetonide .01% oil. All of these help for a time, but then are less effective. The scalp oils are messy, hard to use, burn my eyes and interrupt my sleep. I went to a Dermatologist and she did no testing and said I just had a flaky scalp problem and gave me some samples of Elidel for eyebrows and Taclonex. Honestly I didn't' try the samples because the samples were so small they would not have done much on my problem that covered such a large area and I was warned that they were very expensive. She gave no explaination for the red rings. Do you have any ideas on what my condition is and is there anything that will cure it, or be more helpful and less messy than steroid hair oils ? Thanks very much, XXXX