Tuesday, December 2, 2008

The Rash & Primary Care Doctors

Trying to find a primary care doctor that will see you quickly is difficult. I have an appointment scheduled 3 months from now to see a good doctor in my area. 3 months...

Now I am forced to go to a place that looks like it might be a complete waste of time. Ugh...they can see me today too. That's a terrible sign! In my experience any doctor that is good has always had a long wait.

It appears that I am having very itchy skin, but the rash is from me scratching it. I did a little test today to see if I scratched myself whether or not a "rash" would form in the spot I scratched. Every single time I did this I got a large rash that looked like hives. It would disappear within 30 minutes. Google is absolutely amazing. I found out that there is a very common condition called, dermatographic urticaria, which means "Skin writing hives". I've never had this before in my life, so it is new within the past 5 weeks or so. I wonder if the first set of hives set something off inside my skin.

You can see exactly what this looks like here. Don't click on that link if you are freaked out by red irritated raised skin. This one artist even uses her skin as her canvas. Even this was a little too strange for me! Now some of these people say it doesn't itch at all, so that makes me wonder. These spots and the skin underneath itch like hell for me.

Now I am realizing that I'm just itchy all over. Sometimes it gets so bad that I want to scream and now that I know I CAN'T scratch it, it makes things a lot worse. I feel completely helpless because I can't do anything to relief the itch! My doctor said to try quercetin, so I've ordered some to try it out. It is a natural bioflavonoid with anti-histamine properties. It is found in apple peels, onions and teas. Maybe that's why I really like all of those things! ha!

I'll be sure to report how the doctor's visit went. I'm expecting the worse possible scenario where she calls me a cocaine addict, stupid and a psychiatric patient. This way if something other than this happens I'll be pleased!

No comments: