Could my 12yr old daughter have an autoimmune disease?

[LexieLou1]

This is the first time I've wrote anything on here so thank you for taking the time to read it.

My 12 Yr old daughter has had some sort of inflammation on her hands since Nov 22. It ranges from swelling, redness, to lumps, to scabs, to itchy then pale, red again and changes from finger to finger each day.

We have a hospital appointment March 6th because the gp who has seen her 3 times now cannot grasp what is it.
Blood tests done - she said they are normal.
Antibiotics given orally and via cream. Nothing helped.
I have googled as much as I can and hit a brick wall.
Is it allergy, autoimmune issues, what? I have no clue.

Not sure if I'm allowed to post a photo but I will. This is what her hand looks like today. For context, her fingers are very thin and long so this condition has completely changed them.

Any thoughts or ideas are welcome. Thank you

My daughter has exactly this. It started when she had Covid (it was her only symptom).
She was checked out by a rheumatologist early last year - no bloods taken then but they did an ultrasound on her hands and no arthritis or anything similar was found. The rheumatologist said it was likely related to reynauds (it runs in the family) and they may get worse in colder weather. Sure enough they flared up again last October (one hand worse than the other) and I took her back to the GP.
She had blood tests but her inflammatory markers were actually lower than expected in someone her age so they weren’t concerned there is an underlying cause - she just needs to keep them warm/ wear gloves as soon as the temperature drops etc. We try to keep her hands moisturised too, and if they are painful we use inflammatory gel/chilblain cream.

The photos are from last November. Her fingers are still a bit puffy and pink but not painful at the moment.

That looks a bit like chilblains. Can be linked to some auto-immune conditions (eg raynauds or rheumatoid arthritis). For some people they take quite a long time to resolve.

When my DD had them on her feet for several weeks I bought her some cream to help with the itching and we made sure her feet were warm/ dry (she does a lot of outdoor sport so that's not always easy).

Thank you so much for this reply. The photos you sent are almost identical on some days to my daughters hands. Her hands change daily. Going from average swelling /red/lumps to severe. We have hospital peadritician appointment march 6th. I will update the thread here with their action plan and what they say. I really hope there's a chance her hands can go back to normal because it's very uncomfortable for her on the days when they swell badly. And she is getting conscious of how 'ugly' she feels they look. How is your daughter managing?

my dc had chilblains as they decided gloves are uncool cycling to school.
looked almost the same and was insanely itchy.
baths in warm water mornings and evenings and wearing gloves helped resolve it quickly.

She doesn’t mention them at all anymore (I had to ask her yesterday how her hands were doing). But yes, when they have been very swollen she has been in pain.
I hope you get some answers on the 6th.

I had the same as a child. It was chilblains from doing a paper round in the cold

They look exactly like chilblains to me.

But if they are then I'd be a bit pissed off that a gp hadn't diagnosed them.

It looks like chilblains to me as well. Hirudoid cream will stop them reoccuring but she also needs to be careful about rapid cooling and heating of her hands, so wearing gloves and not putting them straight in hot water to warm up

I was thinking chilblains. I had reynauds as a child. It was mainly my feet. They would itch, then burn. Swell up, blister and scab. Because it's a circulation issue and blood wouldn't reach extremities very well, sometimes my toenails would fall off too 😭

I have Raynauds and get chillblains and lumps on my fingers and look just like the photos posted.
My fingers get extremely swollen too.

I really appreciate everyone's replies. We went gp 3x and the diagnosis was different everytime. (3 different GP's)
1st they said a spider bite resulting in infection.
2nd they said juvenile idiopathic arthritis.
Blood test done - came back clear.
3rd she simply said I have no clue I'm sending her to see a peadritician.
So that's where we are now.
Im going to research Raynauds and things to use for chilblains. Thank you all again.