Blech
I've been struggling with horrible, itchy bumps on my right arm for about 2 months now. They come and go, seemingly at random. When they flare up, they itch so badly that I scratch myself bloody in my sleep and am in what I can only describe as agony when I'm awake - because they are so itchy and sensitive that anything touching them (including something as simple as room temperature water) HURTS.
At first, I thought that something was chewing on me at night. I had my apartment repeatedly checked (and treated) for spiders, ants, bed bugs and a whole other host of creepy crawlies. Still, the red bumps - some the size of quarters, some the size of a saucer, would appear on my arms. Sometimes sticking around for a few days - sometimes appearing and disappearing in a matter of hours. However, until today, the minute I stepped foot in a doctor's office - they would disappear, leaving me to try to explain to the doctor that I am not crazy and just drawing bloody lines in my flesh for no reason. He then started me on antihistimines under the assumption that it was an allergic reaction to something .. possibly my new kitten. I eliminated that one pretty quick by pointing out that we had been going in circles since before I got Bit.
Today, I woke up with both wrists/forearms perfectly normal. By the time I got to the office I had saucer sized, agonizingly itchy lumps on both limbs. As soon as I got to work, I marched my itchy ass down to the doctors office (conveniently located in my office building) and demanded 10 minutes of the doctor's time so I could show him what it was I had been trying to tell him about.
He took one look at my arms, and the bump that appeared on my shoulder while I was in the waiting room, and declared that I have a raging case of ..... hives. After we discussed the "normal" causes (enviornmental) he suggested that because they come and go at random, and not because of any outside stimulation that I can think of, that they were most likely stressed based.
The irony - currently the only thing I'm actively stressing about is the damn hives!
I'm taking 2 different antihistimines ... along with a steroid .. to try to get the damn things gone long enough to go in for another allergy/scratch test to rule out any new enviornmental allergies I may have developed. If that doesn't give anything conclusive - I need to figure out what, exactly, I'm stressing about and figure out how the hell to deal with it.
This officially sucks. Scratch tests HURT. But at this point, I'm pretty sure it will hurt less than these rediculous hives.
But at least I know for certain that it's not creepy crawlies snacking on me in the middle of the night, which makes me feel a little better.
At first, I thought that something was chewing on me at night. I had my apartment repeatedly checked (and treated) for spiders, ants, bed bugs and a whole other host of creepy crawlies. Still, the red bumps - some the size of quarters, some the size of a saucer, would appear on my arms. Sometimes sticking around for a few days - sometimes appearing and disappearing in a matter of hours. However, until today, the minute I stepped foot in a doctor's office - they would disappear, leaving me to try to explain to the doctor that I am not crazy and just drawing bloody lines in my flesh for no reason. He then started me on antihistimines under the assumption that it was an allergic reaction to something .. possibly my new kitten. I eliminated that one pretty quick by pointing out that we had been going in circles since before I got Bit.
Today, I woke up with both wrists/forearms perfectly normal. By the time I got to the office I had saucer sized, agonizingly itchy lumps on both limbs. As soon as I got to work, I marched my itchy ass down to the doctors office (conveniently located in my office building) and demanded 10 minutes of the doctor's time so I could show him what it was I had been trying to tell him about.
He took one look at my arms, and the bump that appeared on my shoulder while I was in the waiting room, and declared that I have a raging case of ..... hives. After we discussed the "normal" causes (enviornmental) he suggested that because they come and go at random, and not because of any outside stimulation that I can think of, that they were most likely stressed based.
The irony - currently the only thing I'm actively stressing about is the damn hives!
I'm taking 2 different antihistimines ... along with a steroid .. to try to get the damn things gone long enough to go in for another allergy/scratch test to rule out any new enviornmental allergies I may have developed. If that doesn't give anything conclusive - I need to figure out what, exactly, I'm stressing about and figure out how the hell to deal with it.
This officially sucks. Scratch tests HURT. But at this point, I'm pretty sure it will hurt less than these rediculous hives.
But at least I know for certain that it's not creepy crawlies snacking on me in the middle of the night, which makes me feel a little better.