Any ideas what this rash might be???

[thebluefoxategreensocks]

(posted this in the allergies section too, but thought I'd try here as well!)

Just wondering whether anyone has come across a rash like this before? My 2yo son has had it covering his back for over 2 weeks now. It started out fairly high on the back but soon spread to cover most of the back (areas he couldn't even reach to scratch). It's evidently quite itchy though! He has rather severe eczema (all over his body, nearly!), but this rash seems rather different. Mainly in that it won't respond at all to any emollients! The eczema varies in its intensity and when he gets covered in Epaderm at night, provided he doesn't scratch too much in the night, the eczema is fairly calm by morning. But nothing seems to have any impact on his back - and it looks different too! The closest I've come to dealing with it was using Calamine lotion - I nearly thought it was clearing up, but that didn't last and it's gotten worse the past few days.

Anyway, I know doctors have to diagnose things! But I'm getting various opinions without any firm ideas or solutions! One of my midwives (who's own son has eczema) was sure it was a form of eczema; I took him to a GP later that day (about 1.5 weeks ago) and she thought it looked viral rather than eczema (the rash did have occasional spots with heads mixed in around the neck area at that stage); and then I took him to a different GP on Monday and he said it wasn't viral, but perhaps something eczema like though maybe infected? So he prescribed Fucidic acid cream - and is going to write off to get us a referral to a dermatologist (for eczema in general really) but that could take ages! Soooo, just wondered if anyone has any ideas what it might be - it's not nice!

Here is what it looked like on Monday:

i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk108/rachins_photos/misc/rash.jpg

i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk108/rachins_photos/misc/rash2.jpg

and this is what it's like tonight, having gotten rather worse last night/today.

i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk108/rachins_photos/misc/updatedrash.jpg

I don't think the fucidic acid cream is working - but then again, I didn't really feel the rash was infected anyway! So don't really know where to go from here.

This is what the eczema on his feet looks like, which is quite different in many ways to the odd rash on his back:

i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk108/rachins_photos/misc/rash3.jpg

Any ideas?? It's quite stressful trying to deal with this at the moment, as I'm 40w 1d pregnant right now! And he's already waking in the nights with the eczema...so the rash on his back only adds to the problems! But so far visits to the GPs have proved fairly pointless, as they don't seem to really know what it is!

[LaDiDaDi]

The thing I think it most looks like is pityriasis rosea. Google it and see what you think, always difficult to tell though when you can't feel as well as see a rash.

[thebluefoxategreensocks]

LaDiDaDi: Sounds very possible - thanks for the tip! Seems it can look rather different from person to person, but many things I've seen just now suggest it could possibly be this. And they all talk about using Calamine lotion...which has been the most effective thing we've tried. Soo, maybe I'm getting somewhere with working out what it is.... This article seemed quite convincing www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/tc/pityriasis-rosea-topic-overview and I did find at least one image somewhere that looked quite like it.

Thanks! xx

[LaDiDaDi]

No probs .