Advertorial

Men Over 60: That “Jock Itch” That Comes Back Every Summer Probably Isn’t Jock Itch

It shows up where your leg meets your body, or under your gut. You spray it, it calms down, and a few weeks later it’s back. The spray was never built for it.

Ask a man over 60 about the red, burning patch down there. You’ll get the same answer almost every time.

“Jock itch.”

He’s sure of it. His buddy had it. His doctor said so once. The can in his medicine cabinet says it right on the front.

And every summer, it comes back.

He sprays it. It calms down for a week or two. Then one hot afternoon it starts to burn again, in the same spot, a little worse than last year.

For a lot of these men, the spray was the wrong tool from day one. The rash was never plain jock itch.

So what is it, really?

Doctors have a name for a rash that forms where skin presses against skin. They call it intertrigo. On a man, it shows up where the leg meets the body. It also shows up under a gut that hangs over the belt, between the cheeks and under the chest.

Three things go wrong in that crease at the same time.

Sweat gets trapped. The skin in a fold never gets air, so it stays damp all day.

Skin rubs on skin. With every step, and every time he sits or stands, the two sides of the fold grind together. Soon the skin goes raw.

Then yeast moves in. Warm, wet, raw skin is exactly where it grows best. The yeast is what brings the burn, the itch and the smell.

That last part is why it gets mistaken for jock itch. Jock itch is a fungus too, and the two look a lot alike. Jock itch spray goes after the fungus. A fold rash is the fungus plus the wet plus the rubbing, and each one makes the other two worse.

5 signs it’s more than jock itch

If two or more of these sound familiar, the spray was aimed at the wrong problem.

1. It comes back every summer. It clears up, and the first hot week brings it right back to the same spot.
2. It sits right in the crease. It runs along the line where skin touches skin, or under the belly where the gut rests on it.
3. It smells, even after a shower. He can wash at seven in the morning and smell it again by noon.
4. There are small red dots just outside the main patch. Those little spots are a sign of yeast. Doctors look for them.
5. The skin cracks or looks wet. The crease goes shiny and raw, and on a bad day it splits when he walks.

Why didn’t the doctor catch it?

Plenty of men put this off for years before they mention it to anyone. When they finally do, the visit can be short.

The doctor takes a two-second look and says jock itch. He doesn’t ask about sweat, or how long the man sits each day. Nobody checks the fold. “Get some spray,” and he’s back in the truck.

So he does what he was told. And when it comes back, he figures he’s doing something wrong. He showers twice a day. He scrubs harder. He changes his underwear at lunch.

Nobody tells him that washing was never the problem. A man can shower twice a day and still have this rash. Soap can’t keep a fold dry for the next eight hours.

What’s in his medicine cabinet?

Open the cabinet of a man who has fought this for a few summers and you’ll find his whole history. A blue spray can. A cream with “AF” on the tube. A bottle of Gold Bond. Baby powder. A jar of Vaseline. Maybe a tube of his wife’s diaper cream that he borrowed and never gave back.

Each one handles a piece of the problem. None of them handles all three.

Jock itch sprays and creams use the same antifungals sold for athlete’s foot. A foot dries out once the boots come off. The fold under a gut stays closed and stays damp. The cream kills some fungus, then just sits there wet. And tolnaftate, the active ingredient in Tinactin, doesn’t work on yeast at all.

Powder soaks up sweat for about an hour. Then it mixes with the sweat and turns to paste. By mid-afternoon that paste is holding the wet right against his skin.

Vaseline and diaper cream coat the skin. They do nothing about the yeast underneath, and they hold the heat in.

So it clears up for a couple of weeks, and then it comes back. If it keeps coming back, it was never fixed.

Why does it get worse after 60?

A man in his twenties can get a rash like this after a hot day. By the weekend it’s gone. After 60, the fold itself changes.

The skin gets thinner. It cracks faster and takes longer to heal.

The folds get deeper. A little extra weight around the middle turns into a belly that sits on the belt line. That fold stays closed from the time he gets dressed until the time he goes to bed.

He sits more. Retirement means more hours in the recliner, the truck, the tractor seat and the fishing boat. Sitting presses the folds shut and holds the heat in.

Blood sugar runs higher. A lot of men over 60 have high blood sugar or diabetes. Sugar comes out in sweat, and yeast feeds on it. That’s why diabetic men have such a hard time getting rid of this rash.

A stronger spray doesn’t fix any of that. Left alone, the rash goes from red, to raw, to cracked skin that splits when he walks. If he’s patched it for five summers, it’s been getting worse that whole time, even when it looked better.

Is there anything that actually works on a fold?

A fold rash has to be treated as one problem with three parts. Something has to dry the fold, stop the rubbing and kill the yeast, all at once. And it has to last the whole day.

That’s what Healora Intertrigo Relief Cream was made to do. This is what’s in the tube:

• Undecylenic acid (10%). An antifungal that kills the yeast at the root, so it doesn’t come right back.
• Zinc oxide (15%). Puts a barrier between the two sides of the fold, so skin stops grinding on skin.
• Witch hazel. Starts drying the fold the minute it goes on.
• Silica and tapioca starch. Soaks up sweat all day without turning to paste.
• Slow-release tea tree oil. Keeps fighting germs for hours after it goes on.

It goes on like a cream and dries down like a powder. You put a thin layer on clean, dry skin, morning and night, and the fold stays dry.

The tea tree oil is slow-release, so most men feel no sting at all, even on raw skin. Any man who has sprayed the blue can on a raw crease knows what a difference that makes.

When we surveyed our own customers, 96% said their rash healed within 24 hours. Half of them said it healed overnight.

Check Availability »50% off 2 tubes, applied automatically at checkout

Over 9,000 men found it before we ever marketed to men

Healora was first sold to women. Women get the same rash under the chest, under the belly and where the leg meets the body.

But the same questions kept showing up in our comments.

“Can men use this”

“Does it work on males?”

“You do know men get these rashes too . Right?”

“Any history of it working for guys in the groin area? Diabetic man, sugars rollercoaster…”

Then the orders came in. More than 9,000 men bought Healora before we ever marketed to men. And plenty of wives bought it for their husbands.

“Sent some to my son who had tried everything! It worked for him, too.”

Now there’s a version for men. It looks the same on the outside. Inside, the formula was adjusted for men.

If you’ve been treating “jock itch” every summer for years, it’s time to treat the fold.

Check Availability »Ships next business day from healora.com

What customers say about the groin and belly folds