I had ringworm when I was little. (“Pizza legs! HAHAHAHAaaa!” that little.) I probably got it from dragging in every stray withing ten miles of my house.
My parents were none too pleased. while I seemed to be little affected and easily rid of it, it plagued my dad for ages. (“Daddy has pizza back! Hahahahaha!”)
I haven’t really had any weird skin things, except that I unexpectedly broke out in hives once after being stung on the neck, which had never happened before in the many times I have been stung as a beekeeper. Benadryl cleared it up quickly, and it hasn’t happened again. What I mostly wanted to say was that reading this thread makes me itchy!
I’m so glad I’m not the only gooey, sore, itchy person around!
I don’t normally get flus or colds, maybe one during the winter months, nothing too serious. But two days ago I started getting a very sore throat and cough which would not go away. I then woke up one morning and couldn’t open my eyes - they were encrusted with a gooey discharge and were completely bloodshot. My nose was stuffed up with a sticky thick green goo - basically I have a bad case of the flu and a bad case of bacterial conjunctivitis all in one go. But wait, there’s more!
So I’m sitting here today trying to recover from this horrible flu and gross conjunctivitis, and my ear starts getting slightly itchy. I scratch it a bit…now it’s a fully-fledged, popping, painfully painful ear ache which is giving me more grief than I can handle at the moment what with everything else.
cries Body, why must you turn against me so?
Oh yeah, and a couple of years ago my whole family contracted a really bad case of scabies. It covered my whole body and lasted for about a year, even with proper medication and everything. I still have the tiny scars from the spots which I scratched to stop the horrible itching. Now everytime I find an itchy spot on myself, I panic thinking it’s scabies. shudders
Scribbles: Has your doctor tried you on Antivert yet? I had labyrinthitis real bad too years ago and the Antivert my doctor gave me was a life saver. I had a small baby at home at the time and the combination of Antivert and steroids was the only way that I could sit upright long enough to care for him for short periods of time. I still had to rely pretty heavily on my mom and my husband to help care for my kid for about six weeks or so, but it eventually went away.
Okay, on the weird skin diseases category, the skin on my inner thighs broke out into hives really, really bad once. I was under a considerable amount of stress at the time and the doctor said it was a psychosomatic reaction to the stress. They were really resistant to Benadryl too. The itching would stop for an hour or so, but the rash just would not go away. After almost two weeks of this, my doctor finally placed me on some steroids and antibiotics because I was itching the skin so bad that it got secondarily infected and was oozing this yellowish pus. It took another week before it finally disappeared.
I am sorry to say I have no oozing sores, gangrenous wounds or strange markings anywhere on my body except a fading case of ACNE. 
I have come here to share my father’s skin thingie.
He has Ehler’s Danlaes(sp?) which is in short this hereditary condition in males that makes the skin reaaaaaaally strechy. I never knew he had it cause it isn’t really noticable in him . AND THEN I found out my grandad had it…much worse than my dad.
This man thought it amusing to grab a jowl(flap?) of skin and stretch it what seemed like a foot from his face and sneaking up behind me to scare the living daylights out of his 6-year-old grandchild.:eek:
And that, ladies and gentleman, is why I am like I am today.
(In case anyone was wondering, I am a female, so no, I do not have the skin condition…just in case someone was wondering)
Weird diseases? Honey, I’m hooooooome… I’ve got 'em…
As far as skin, my skin would react with a big welt whenever it was touched with a good deal of pressure when I was in jr. high. Like if I was carrying my spiral bound notebook against my arm, I would have puffy stripes where the spirals touched me. Weird, but not too bad. Kind of entertaining. Also that year, my whole family got scabies.
Then, in college, my face would just magically suddenly have these red spots late at night, just one at a time, in shapes. I kid you not. I would see them when I was getting ready for bed. One time it was an A. A red A. I felt like Hester Prynne. Then one time it was a circle, and one time it was this star shape. I was like, okay, Satan is using my face for a canvas or something. Weird. But if you want a real f-ed up disease, you need to go way south, to my feet. I’ve bitched about this before.
I have had 5 reconstructive knee surgeries which helped me just minimally, and then in about 1986 I began having pain in my feet. Pain and cramps, and sometimes numbness. Unable to stand for long periods of time, and unable to wear shoes that weren’t ‘right’. ‘Right’ was defined by my feet, if the shoes didn’t give me pain and cramps, and very few shoes feel that way. Okay, so I need to get this cured.
I started at my family doctor. I was referred to an internist. He referred me to an orthopedic surgeon. He referred me to a rheumatologist. He referred me to an anesthesiologist. He referred me to a neurologist. I think I am leaving out someone. Maybe I’ve blocked it.
During this time of referrals I was X-rayed, prodded, probed, had electric shocks measured in the nerves of my legs, had needles stuck in my back, was advised to try orthopedic shoes, given many different drugs, etc. Not to mention the money…!
I was never given a definite diagnosis. Everything looked fine in the X-rays. My nerves happily passed the electric shocks along. All the doctors couldn’t find a damn thing wrong.
When I had my 5th reconstructive surgery on my knee, that orthopedic surgeon said my tendons in my heel and ankle were too tight, causing my problem. So during the surgery they cut the tendons, pushed the foot back to be at a 90 degree angle with my leg, and put a cast on my foot and lower leg. After the cast came off there was a leather and metal brace Frankenstein shoe on my foot and lower leg. That came off finally.
Hey, guess what? I still have the cramps and pain in both feet. And now one foot is at a different angle than the other. SUCKS!!!
But for all of you with arthritis-y pain or itchiness, you need to get some Zostrix. Its made with this extract from hot peppers (I don’t work for them, btw) and it can really help with pain. But use gloves or cover your hand with a baggie when you put it on, because you don’t want it in your eyes or anywhere. And if you itch, rub some on the itchy spot, dampen it and it will buuuuuurrrn… but that feels good when you’re itchin’.
Sorry to make such a long post! Most people don’t want to hear about this!!!
Gah. Well, I’m glad that I’m not the only person with hideous skin ickies.
I’ve had excema in one pretty constant patch since I was a young teen. It looks icky, but I usually pretty much forget about it. The family doctor tried eveything on it, then threw up his hands and called it ‘stress related’ when nothing worked to kill it off.
Thursday, I noticed that it was starting to itch, and spread a little bit.
Friday, I called in sick because I was covered in bumps from fingertip to shoulder and it itched like crazy!
Today I need to call the doctor and demand to be fit in. I am covered in bumps. My arms, legs, ears, face, back and chest. Everywhere. Itching like mad.
My sister thought it might be chicken pox.
Just my luck, being 28 and never having had them.
I’m pretty sure it’s not, though. They don’t look right.
I really hope that they have something for the itching!
??
What is pulmonary eosinophilic granuloma? (That just irritated the hell out of my spellchecker.)
Once, for no reason at all, the skin on my fingertips started to dry and get loose! Then it started peeling off just as if it was a coat of paraffin wax and sometimes itched so I had to scratch it and pull little strips off. Underneath, the skin was pink and fine and after all 10 fingers had ‘shed their skin,’ things went back to normal. The new skin toughened up and that was that. I still don’t know why it did that.
I too am going through a very weird skin thing right now. Has anyone ever heard of pityriasis rosea? I hadn’t either until the doctor told me that’s what I had.
It started out with a big red circle on my neck which looked like ringworm, so I treated it as such for about a month but it never went away, then one Sunday morning while getting out of the shower I saw two more smaller spots on my chest and knowing that ringworm doesn’t spread I freaked out. I went to one of those Emergency Treatment Centers and the doc there told me I had this weird thing. He seemed rather impressed and even went and looked it up in some book so he could show me pictures, YUCK! It covers your trunk area with scaly little patches and lasts for about 12 weeks and there is no cure and nothing you can do about it, it just has to run it’s course. He did say that the “mother patch” is often mistaken for ringworm and you don’t know you have pityriasis rosea until the other patches show up.
The only good thing is the spots don’t go below your elbows or knees, so my basic outfit of jeans and t-shirt cover them all well, I just can’t put my hair in a ponytail while out in public cause I have them on the back of my neck. I will be soooo glad when they are gone! They are not real itchy or anything I just look like a leper covered in red spots.
How about a syndrome? I’ve got a syndrome. Blepharochalasis syndrome.
When I was in my first semester of collage, my right eyelid started to swell up like a golfball about once a month, about a week before my period. Very ugly. The first time it happened was during exam week so I thought it was stress. Then it happened again and a went to a doctor. I was told it was allergies (it wasn’t) or conjuntivitisis (which it wasn’t, althought I sometimes get that, too).
The eye thing went on quite regularly for the next 10 years. The skin of the lid is now permanently scarred and stretched, so the one eye is always puffier. The grand finale was an episode that happened in conjuction with a bout of the flu, where a quarter of my face puffed up. They treated that with steriods. but when they took me off, the eyeball itself swelled up and turned bright red. A swollen eyeball is very painful, and looks like a horror movie special effect.
When I finally got an accurate diagnosis, it was blepharochalasis, which means “puffy eyelids”. This is some rare syndrome which happens, generally to young women, which they grow out of, and which leaves the eyelid permantently damaged and needing plastic surgery. I’ll get that eventually, when I can convince an insurance company to pay, or have a spare two grand.
When a doctor explained this to me, I said “That’s not fair!”
He said, “Who said life was fair?”
I thought he was a rat bastard, but that’s sure true, isn’t it?
Wow, DarbyV, that sounds exactly like what I have. I had a largish red spot on my neck that spread to my chest and back. I have an appt. today to find out what it is. I thought it was guttate psoriasis brought on by bacterial infection (I just got over pneumonia and tonsilitis), but that doesn’t spread in quite the same way. I’ll have to mention that to my doc. Pityriasis rosea - has the word “pity” right in it. Fitting.
Tripler:
I got gout, too.
It is the most unfair disease. It’s like “Instant Broken Leg”, because it comes on out of nowhere and instantly debilitates you. The thing is, if you take an anti-inflammatory (like Indomethacin) it disappears without a trace. Just don’t run out of anti-inflammatories.
It’s also like the stuff in “Dr. Jeckyll and Mister Hyde” – you have to keep taking more of it. Or it’s like illegal drugs, except the payoff isn’t getting high or hallucinations or a buzz – it’s feeling normal.
Oh, and I get a skin rash, too – Tinea Versicolor caused by Melasezzia Furfur.
Being ill is so educational.
My sympathies to all of you. I hope your illnesses, skin problems, and other assorted maladies clear up quickly. Those of you with chronic conditions–I hope your health problems take as small a toll on you as possible.
Thanks for the suggestion, Shadowfox, but, no, she hasn’t. And, at this point, I want my symptoms to be as unmitigated by drugs as possible. I’ve got an ENT appointment on the 16th, and I’d like the specialist to see how I’m doing when my body is left to its own devices. (BTW–I’m Scribble, without the final “s.” There’s only one of me.)
Also, I’m getting a lot better pretty quickly. I’m more stable today than I was yesterday. Hopefully, by the end of the week, or by early next week, I won’t want or need any drugs at all.
This isn’t in the same league with the actual problems, but i just got over a cold. Congestion, runny nose, that kind of stuff.
With all the gooey mucous, nose wiping and blowing my upper lip is completely broken out. It looks pretty gross. It’s not too bad, if I keep ointment on it. That cracks Soupo up- “Daddy’s got snotty nose! Ha ha ha!” The kid can be a real pip.
-Rue.