I'm one of the lucky lupusites who has discoid, cutaneous and systemic lupus. My skin is consistently being attacked (attacking itself) changing the cell structure and I get cutaneous lupus lesions and necrotic ulcers, discoid rashes, hives, and all sorts of strange skin symptoms. I'm going to post the pics I have and do my best to explain the rashes here.
This is a chest rash I had this past May. It started as a discoid rash (pic below) and changed to an ulceric nencrotizing lesion. It looked like flesh eating disease. My dermatologist treated it by giving me a steroid shot right into it to help healing.
Here it is how it started:
My hair fell out. It's a good thing I have thickish hair, you probably can't tell. The hair doesn't grow back in these areas.
The next rash is my first discoid rash. This one was on my back. It was biopsied by my dermatologist and this biopsy along with a highly positive ANA panel led to my dx of systemic lupus.
Lupus rashes are different for everyone, and each rash is different than the one before. One thing I have learned, that any irritation to my skin causes my lupus to act up and form a rash or lesion. When I get radiofrequency ablations I get a rash on the shot site. When I get hives I get a rash that stays on the site. The skin on my chest, back and face is permanently discolored. It's not too bad, and I'm pretty vain. If I can live with it, it's manageable. I have a necklace that covers the one on my chest pretty good. While they're healing is the worst time for me. I don't like to cover them with a bandaid, but I do when I go out. You should SEE the STARES I get. I figure their just jealous. Everyone wants one I guess, lol.
when you do have the rash is it itchy but yet painful in any way?
ReplyDeleteYes. Itching is so bad it hurts. Sometimes the itching is on hives or a vascular lesion and breaks skin so it hurts. Have you thought about shingles? Shingles is a rash caused by inactive virus that becomes active and causes pain like burning and pox like rash. It is from varicella zoster or the chicken pox virus. Just a thought. Much love, Julie ps. Lupus causes all sorts of rashes, mainly because it's an inflammatory condition and autoimmune meaning your body is attacking HEALTHY tissue instead of non healthy agents. Gentle HUGS, LoveJulie
ReplyDeleteps here's a link to some info on shingles:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001861/