12/05/2025
UPDATE: Confused by widespread rash and other symptoms - doctors have dismissed it up until now that it’s gotten so much worse
Hi everyone, thank you to those of you who offered comments to my post a few weeks ago regarding my health/skin.
I’ve had some crazy few weeks so I’m interested in opinions on how this has progressed.
A few days after that post, the infection worsened to the point where I went to the ER, thank god they took it more seriously this time and I was admitted to hospital for a week.
I got a brain CT scan and brain+upper spine MRI which is amazing, and it came back normal aside from some sinus inflammation. As for blood tests, they did a few including inflammation markers but unfortunately I don’t have access to these (thinking about it, I’ll ask for those records) so I’m not fully certain what has and hasn’t been done. The main autoimmune markers came back normal. Eosinophills were the only thing that came back abnormal (I think it was about 1.0 x 10e9/L)
I was given IV antibiotics of flucloxacillin, and a tapering dose of prednisone and topical steroids. I was also given an array of things to help with my twitching and head pain.
The steroids and antibiotics helped to clear up the skin, and the other symptoms were sort of masked whereas I stopped twitching but still felt unwell.
Quite a few doctors came through who were all pretty unsure, and couldn’t quite pinpoint if my symptoms were all linked or not.
The dermatology team diagnosed the skin as infected discoid eczema, hence the steroid prescription. The punch biopsy result (from a patch on my lower back, not on the photos in this post but the previous post) support this diagnosis, the report is as follows:
“There is epidermal spongiosis, exocytosis of lymphocytes and parakeratosis. There is crust with serum, neutrophils A superficial and mid-dermal perivascular infiltrate of lymphocytes, histiocytes and eosinophils is present. Edema of the papillary dermis is present”
Sooo that all sounds like it wraps up my situation nicely. However unfortunately things have taken a bad turn since then.
After leaving the hospital, I have been following the doctors instructions perfectly as well as eating very well and resting and all those things. For about one week my skin was clear but I felt so, so “off” still, not one bit better. I then started getting pain in my eye, and bam over the course of a few days this intense impetigo-looking crust appears in patches around my face (second image) I’m still throughout all this getting individual folliculitis-looking bumps with little whiteheads appearing, and one morning I wake up and there’s literally hundreds of them over my back (first image) which was literally clear the previous day (as opposed to compared to the image in my last post) The rash seems different to before where there’s so many white heads and they’re right directly on the hair follicles/pores. The rash is periodically itchy and painful (sleeping is…difficult)
My other symptoms, headache fatigue pain (see my other post for more description and timeline) are like 8/10 terrible every day. I’m also getting pain in my mid right side of my stomach, and in other areas around my insides, but this could be from all the drugs.
Here’s where I’m confused: I managed to see a dermatologist 2 days ago when this all got worse, who is pretty certain that this is a bacterial infection and that the eczema component is actually an inflammatory response to the infection, NOT the other way around. In my opinion this would make sense since my systemic symptoms began right when this all started, rather than after the eczema element developed. He even said he thinks the oral steroids was a bad move but I’m going to continue the taper so as to not cause worse effects, I have one week left.
He’s put me on a strong and long dose of cephalexin and topical antibiotics. He took new swabs which will take another week for results.
The thing is I’ve been on sooo many antibiotics which seem to sort of help and then not. I’m just at my absolute breaking point (yet again, didn’t realise I could get any lower)
I am on my sixth week off work, now unpaid and just at the lowest I’ve ever been in my life. I used to be so healthy and “normal” before this and it quite seriously feels like it’s ruining my life.
It feels like I get half-answers but have made literally zero progress in the last several months (though it was great to get the scans to rule some things out)
Even though there’s definitely an eczema component to this, I’m not convinced that’s the underlying cause and I’m not feeling like I’m on the right track to figuring it out
I suppose my questions are; does anyone have any thoughts on if I should be digging for more tests, or any words of wisdom. I’m just so lost as to where to go from here, things keep getting worse. Once again I’m sorry if this post is a bit jumbled my brain is not functioning normally
