[FONT=“Comic Sans MS”]okay so i got this rash after getting a new bed from someone my family loves, i dont know what it isand i cant afford to go to the doctors or anything right now, but if you could please help me, in some direction by helping my diagnose it, i’d greatly appreciate it…here are some pictures. [/FONT]
Now see a doctor.
Also, you are fried chicken. What do you expect? (OK, I admit, that was my real reason for posting.)
Looks serious. The rash is spreading to your post.
Looks like herpes.
Apply an ointment of bacon grease, menthol, and red fire ants.
Remember, you can trust me. I’m an anonymous poster on the internet!
Not a doc. Advise you to see one.
Wash your sheets in your normal detergent?
KFCC, I’ve reported this threads to the Moderators so they can move it to the appropriate Forum. No big deal, just a bit of organization.
Now, I can’t diagnose you or tell you what it is you have, because pictures don’t really work well for that and I’m not your doctor. What I can tell you is some things that generally help people with itchy skin with red spots. But of course, you should check my information with other sources and use it at your own risk. It’s possible, although unlikely, that this rash is a symptom of something very serious that a doctor would need to take care of - so it’s your call.
(In other words, don’t sue the Dope or me if you use any advice in this thread and your leg falls off from gangrene or something.)
First, are you still using the mattress? I’d vacuum it, spray it down with a disinfectant spray and let it dry thoroughly and then cover it in a plastic cover, one of the zippered kinds that encloses it completely. You want to remove and/or place a barrier between you and whatever in the mattress is irritating your skin, if you can’t replace the mattress.
Next, I’d treat the skin topically with baking soda and water. A baking soda bath is an easy way to do this. Just put about 1/2 a cup of baking soda in a warm but not hot bath. Soak for a while and rinse it off. Baking soda is soothing to the skin. Oatmeal is another good skin soother, although it’s a bit messier to clean out of your bathtub! You can put the oatmeal in an old nylon or a couple of layers of cheesecloth before you run the bath, and that cuts down on the mess.
If you’re a fan of essential oils, chamomile and lavender (make sure it’s lavender and not lavendin) are both soothing to reddened skin. You can either put a few drops in a carrier oil like olive oil and gently rub/pat it on the affected areas, or you can put a few drops into a tablespoon of milk and put that in your bath. (The milk stops the essential oils from floating on top of the water and burning your skin as you pass through it.)
Oral Benadryl and topical creams with hydrocordisone can relieve itching caused by allergic reactions and are available at the drugstore without a prescription. Follow the label directions and ask the pharmacist at the drugstore if you have questions about taking these or any other medications.
Questions about medical advice are more suitable for IMHO than GQ. Moving. I am also editing the thread title to indicate the subject.
Colibri
Gener
If you or a neighbor have an aloe vera plant, you could try breaking off a leaf and putting that inner gel on the rash. I’ve found this soothes and helps heal mystery red itchy patches sometimes.
If it gets worse, there may be a free/low-cost clinic near you that could take a look at it and at least give you something stronger.
I had an annoying rashthe other week, and some feverish symptoms. Within 48 hours I was hospitalised. If the rash spreads quickly, and you feel all-around ill into the bargain, forget about not affording to see the doctor, you can’t afford not to.
It doesn’t look like bedbugs which you’d expect with a matress but I wonder if they treated the mattress with chemicals to kill bedbugs. You could have contact dermatitis from a chemical and I would be wary of using more chemicals on the mattress. I’d air it out a bit, then encase it in a plastic mattress cover.
Look up contact dermatitis and see if that sounds like your problem. Again, if it’s a large area, painful, itchy or spreading your best bet is to see a doctor.
Did they figure out how you got it? My dad, and four other patients of the same doctor in a couple months span, all were declared to have gotten it from bug bites.
Nope, it’s a mystery. Who doesn’t get a hundred minor scratches, nicks, cracks and bites in his skin during his life, and 99% of them come to nothing? Could be cracked skin between the toes, which I get fairly often, but there was no sign of any infection below the ankle.
Non-medical advice: get a zippable bag-style mattress cover.
Advice:
See a doctor.
It may or may not be connected to the bed. I’ve had a lot of skin problems in my life, some epic, and I could name a half dozen things that rash could be… but I won’t. Because I’m not a doctor, and even if I was, I wouldn’t try to diagnose over the internet.
You can try topical treatments - ask your local pharmacist what’s good over the counter for a rash if you’re not certain - but if it doesn’t clear up in a couple days GO SEE A DOCTOR. Because open, broken skin like that will get infected sooner or later, and that will just make things MUCH worse. And more expensive.
If money is a problem then, when you call the doctor’s office, TELL THEM THAT when you make the appointment so they know that - some places will give you a discount if you have an actual medical problem but a lack of money. Or they’ll refer to a free/low cost clinic. You may have to wait a few hours for treatment, but you’ll get seen by a real doctor. Hopefully, this will result in a real diagnosis and a targeted treatment.
Some other medical money tips:
Call the “walk in” clinic at your local Walgreens or CVS to see if rashes are part of their scope of practice. I don’t know if they are or not, but if they are, they’re a fairly inexpensive resource that can get you in quickly. They can’t handle every medical malady, but for the ones they do, they’re often nearly half the price of local doctors.
If not, explain to the person making your appointment at a doctor’s office that you have no insurance, and ask if they will give you the insured customer’s rate, sometimes called the “usual and customary” rate. See, the doctor’s office may list $100 as the office visit rate, but a Blue Cross customer will see an adjustment on their bill, because Blue Cross will pay the “usual and customary” rate of $75 for the visit. Some offices will give you that $75 rate, or have a percent discount off their $100 rate for uninsured patients who ask. This is more often done in offices where a significant number of their patients are low-income with no insurance, so it may be beneficial to call an office on the “wrong” side of town.
If/When you see a doctor, tell her that money is of great concern, and she may very well choose the cheaper medication if there are two or more to choose from, or even give you enough free samples to cover your course of treatment. Don’t automatically accept the first prescription she wants to write for you, it’s your right to be educated about your treatment options, and cost is a valid variable for patients to, at least partially, base their treatment plan on.
They may not exist where the OP is. As far as I know, neither CVS nor Walgreens (and definitely not Wal-mart) has any sort of clinics/medical services beyond giving flu shots in my entire state.