Spots, spots and more spots

March 10th the guy noticed that I had a rash on my back. I gave Nattie (our German Shepherd) a bath in the tub with a soap I had never used before so I presumed it was from this as I have very sensitive skin.

Over the next month I broke out with new spots continuously. They appears everywhere except my neck, my face, my palms and the soles of my feet. It started to itch and burn primarily on my legs. I saw 3 doctors and even ask the girls pediatrician while they were in for a check-up and all of them basically said "yep, spots, let's take some blood" No one really knew what was going on with me.

The third doctor was just at the walk-in-clinic who promised me that he would get me to a dermatologist the next day (since I was having a hard time getting into one, I was told anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months.) The next morning his nurse call me at 8:20am and they had me an appointment THAT DAY to see a dermatologist (ironically it was the office that told me 3 months.)

The dermatologist was on March 25 who immediately said vasculitis, but did a skin biopsy. The biopsy came back as vasculitis a week later, which is about as helpful as slug. I did my own research and the type it appears I had can be caused by anything from a medication I am on -- to an environmental factor. But no one was telling me WHAT I should do next. I went back to my regular doctor a week later (April 8th.) Apparently vasculitis is not something that general practitioners know much about. She called a Rheumatologist who said to give me prednisone - yuck. So I stopped all medications I was taking and went on prednisone.


If you know nothing about prednisone you don't want to. It makes you irritable and makes you feel like you are on sensory overload. I was on it for 8 days, I had night sweats, I was a complete grouch, I wasn't sleeping well. The medications I was taken off of were a blood pressure medication and an anti-depressant. Prednisone makes you grouchy and makes your blood pressure elevate, two things I do just fine on my own thank-you-very-much and now I was taken off the two medications I take to help with those and put on one that will make it worse. Fun times.

And it was to a point that if one-more-person told me "my husband had a rash like that and xxx helped..." or I was going to throw them off a bridge. These were the same people who did not recognize the rash when I first got it, I told them it was vacuities and they had never heard of vacuities, THEY HAD NO IDEA what I was going through.

Yesterday I finally saw the Rheumatologist, who had not much to say that I didn't already learn on my own. At least now I am not a new patient so if it happens again I hope I can get it sooner than 2 1/2 weeks. He took more blood... this time was by far the most blood I have had taken at once, 14 vials. I have had so much blood taken and so far the only things that come back as 'abnormal' are that I have a slightly elevated white blood count and another came back as I had inflammation in my body, yeah thanks, I had inflation of my blood vessels!

I have not gotten new spots since April 7th. I have old spots that are fading, I have some that are scabbed and/or irritated, but overall it looks good. Still really no answers about why I had them, ideas, but not answers. At this point I just hope I never get them again.



What is Vasculitis? Vasculitis is an inflammation of the blood vessels, arteries, veins or capillaries. When such inflammation occurs, it causes changes in the walls of blood vessels, such as weakening and narrowing that can progress to the point of blood vessel blockage.





Kids for the most part were very curious about my spots.

C (5 1/2) who I don't see often as she lives across the state and does not ask strangers questions, sweetly asked me what happened to my legs.

Because at first we did not know if it was contagious I had not been seeing my friends... when I finally saw some of them G (4 1/2) started crying and said: "Why did you let Angie come over, now we are all going to get spots."

The neighbor girl said "where did you get those spots?" I told her "The store" and then asked her if she wanted me to pick up some for her.

Adults usually cringed and they were glad that they were on me, not them.

Want to see pictures of my spots? I bet you do!