For the last three weeks, I’ve been fighting this gnarly skin issue that I just can’t seem to get a handle on. It all started when I pulled up to my small group on a Wednesday a couple of weeks ago and noticed that the back of my hand was itching. I looked down and I had this tiny little blister on the back. Not a clue where it came from or what it was, but I figured I must have just been bit by something. I didn’t give it much though.
Fast forward a couple of days and I had some tiny blisters on my fingers on the same hand, and on my forearm of my right arm. So needless to say, I started to get a bit concerned, but nothing to really worry about that much.
Then the real itching started.
It got so bad that I decided I needed to go to urgent care. There’s nothing quite like a spreading rash on your body to go see if you can get some help. I went to my regular urgent care, they asked me a few questions, and I left with a diagnosis of Contact Dermatitis. That made a little bit of sense. I had done some yard work the Saturday before and I was grabbing bits of a rosemary bush. That lead me to think that maybe I had a rosemary allergy and the soap I was using, which contained rosemary, was just exacerbating that allergic reaction. So they sent me home with a steroid prescription and I was on my and on the way to getting better.
Except I wasn’t.
Not only did the steroid not work, I was starting to get full blow red splotches on my arms and the rash continued to spread. The itching got to be unbearable and was keeping my up at night. I made it through the weekend but then I had to go back and see if they could take another look.
Lucky for me, I saw the same nurse practitioner that I saw the first time and she was shocked that the problem had gotten worse. In her defense, it really did look like textbook contact dermatitis. It looked that way to her and to me, and to my good friend who is a physician’s assistant. I tried to make sure she knew it wasn’t her fault because it really did look like I’d gotten into poison ivy or something. We ended up chasing it like a fungal infection because of some characteristics of the blisters. So I went home with an anti-fungal cream, antibiotics, and a systemic anti-fungal I could take.
Here we are almost a week after that and I’m still on the strugglebus. I felt like I might be getting better but it stalled and the itching hasn’t quit. The good news is that I made a dermatology appointment to see if I can get this handled and I’m going to see that guy on Monday. That’s pretty dang excited. I’m not sure what this is, but I don’t think it’s a fungal infection. To be fair, Stephanie never thought it was.
I tell this story mostly because I just need to tell it, and I also need to sympathize with people who have found themselves cursed with some kind of unidentified illness. This really sucks. I’m so used to getting sick, getting medicine, then getting better. Having a mystery illness is really frustrating. I want to believe that there is a simple set of tests to determine almost anything, but at the end of the day you have to find someone who is willing and has the knowledge to diagnose this stuff for you. I think the urgent care just doesn’t have the specialty to know what this is. I’m sure the dermatologist has seen all kinds of skin stuff and will hopefully be able to get me some help.
I guess we’ll find out on Monday. For now, I’ll just try my best to sleep as I can but this itching is absolutely brutal at night. Even with all the drugs they hooked me up with.