What on earth is this rash?
July 18, 2010 9:23 PM   Subscribe

What the hell is this rash? SFW but eye-glazingly detailed info inside.

My three-year-old daughter and I recently returned from a trip to the Traverse City, MI area, where we spent a lot of time running around outside and even more time hanging out in a freshwater lake. The lake did have swimmer's itch, which we all got some of in moderation. The day before we left, I noticed my daughter had a pindot rash on the backs of her knees, which I attributed to chafing from her swimsuit. (She has a long-sleeved down-to-her-knees high-SPF swimsuit.) But when I put some lotion on it to ease the irritation, she began to SCREAM, and continued to do so until I iced it out of desperation. The rash faded down after about 20 minutes.

The next day, due to weather and connection silly buggers, I had to sprint across the Minneapolis airport. After we were safely on our connection, I visited the airplane bathroom where I noticed some dry, rough skin on the insides and tops of my thighs. I figured it was chafing from the rough sprint; I'm not in great shape, plus I'm six months pregnant, so it was not exactly an elegant run if you get my meaning. I sort of rubbed it down and went back to my seat, but went back to the bathroom when I felt it start to prickle. Lo and behold, the same pindot rash appeared. I dug out some lotion and put it on, and it almost immediately began to sting and burn incredibly seriously. It felt like a jellyfish sting or a nettle rash, no lie. I hopped about and swore and went back to my seat and did some deep breathing and tried to focus on something else, and after about 20 minutes, the pain faded.

That was Wednesday. It's now Sunday. Anywhere on my or my daughter's body this rough dry skin appears, friction will raise the pindots. Lotion or cream (no matter what kind; we've used cortisone, fancy stuff from Lush, and lanacaine) causes the stinging, once; repeated friction will re-raise the pindots, but the same area of skin won't repeat the stinging. There's one place on my daughter's leg where she frantically rubbed at the rash "to try and get the owie dots off" where they're now there all the time, but if you don't do that, they fade. The rash is on my daughter's legs, hip to ankle, and her upper chest and neck; it's on my thighs and forearms.

Neither of us has any fever, joint pain, appetite disruption, abdominal pain, or malaise. The rash doesn't form any kind of pattern, it's flat, and it doesn't itch at all. It's not purpuritic, there are no blisters or whiteheads, and there's no drainage or fluid. Nobody else who was with us on the trip -- close to forty extended family members were up there -- got anything like this. I called our nurse line, and they were all ". . . well that's different" and told me to go to the doc first thing tomorrow on account of being pregnant, but they had no ideas of what it was. I will, of course, be following their advice, but have any of you lovely people ever experienced or heard of anything like this?
posted by KathrynT to Health & Fitness (6 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
i have used the internets to identify bugs http://www.whatsthatbug.com/ and birds http://www.whatbird.com so i figure there had to be one for rashes. there are a bunch: rashes but sorry, too close to bedtime to look at any of the info on them :-)
posted by ChefJoAnna at 9:55 PM on July 18, 2010


honestly, it sounds like a weird case of swimmer's itch to me. i used to get it all the time as a child in michigan, and i remember lotions not helping. i don't know why you have it, but your kid probably has it from being in a bodysuit and not getting aired out frequently enough (that's often why i got it as a kid). honestly, i can't say for sure, but it's what it sounds like to me. take a look at some of the pictures of swimmer's itch out there and see if it looks like what you have.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 5:03 AM on July 19, 2010


The (nearby community) Leelanau News indicts a flatworm parasite of the merganser duck. You might wish to print the article for your doctor.
posted by Carol Anne at 5:38 AM on July 19, 2010


I had a rash similar to what you describe, though I thought it may have been from the lounge chairs I was sitting on. It was frustrating to try to moisturize and have it seem to make things more uncomfortable- the least irritating thing I found was pure shea butter. I also took Benadryl for a few days. I don't know if it helped, but about three days later the reactions stopped happening and I was left with dry patches that finally went away.

Just for future reference, I would avoid Lush Lotions on irritated skin. They all have "perfume", which is Lush's word for artificial fragrance. Some also have other natural ingredients that are skin sensitizers or allergens, such as Linalool, Benzyl Cinnamate, and Citronellol.
posted by oneirodynia at 9:26 AM on July 19, 2010


Response by poster: Misanthropicsarah, it's really different from swimmer's itch, which we also got. I've been going to this lake my whole life, and I'm unfortunately extremely familiar with swimmer's itch. For one thing, swimmer's itch itches like the Itchocalypse, but this doesn't itch at all.

Oneirodynia, that sounds EXACTLY like what I'm dealing with. Good to know yours just went away on its own; that's what I'm experiencing, but every time my daughter gets warm (like from a hot bath) her legs pop up all over dots again. Thank God they don't sting any more.
posted by KathrynT at 9:51 AM on July 19, 2010


Response by poster: My doctor has an idea! She thinks that my daughter's swimsuit might have collected some algae or something from when she was playing in the shallows, and we might be having a reaction to that. (The areas on me that are irritated are the parts of my body that came into contact with her swimsuit while I was carrying her in the lake.) She says it's totally consistent with contact dermatitis, and as long as it's getting better, there's no reason to worry.

Hooray for doctors who have email!
posted by KathrynT at 11:08 AM on July 19, 2010


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