New With guttate psoriasis and miserable!

[jennmkirby]

Hi all... so glad I found this board! From what I've read you all seem like very nice and helpful and comforting folks.

A week ago I had a nasty itchy rash that I thought was from using a bath and body works product (never dreamed it had anything to do with the strep throat I had a few weeks ago.) Visited a dermatologist Thursday who confirmed that no, this is definitely GP... she also thinks I probably had some of the scalp and elbow garden variety of P going on before, which has gotten much worse with this GP outbreak. I have itchy red spots ALL OVER my legs, arms, chest, stomach, back, hips, and face (especially around my hairline... it's more just one big red blotch than lots of little dots.) It's especially bad on my lower legs... there the spots have all run together and are starting to ooze clear stuff. In those areas it looks like a bad third degree burn and is horribly painful! It looks like the pictures of the plaque form of P, not like little drops at all.

My doc prescribed a 2x/day triamcinolone cream .1% (I think) and soaks with cutar and tarsum shampoo for the scalp. It's been three days and I am still extremely miserable, even more so than before! She doesn't have access to light therapy but said she would hook me up with a doc that has the light box if I'd like to go that route (and I do think I'm going to need to be much more aggressive with treatment.)

Please share experiences with GP... what was your case like, how fast did it clear up for you, what did your doctor prescribe, did you go on and develop the chronic plaque psoriasis as I've found many people do... anything that you think might be helpful. Thanks in advance - I have a 19-month-old to take care of and it's tough when I'm feeling so awful!

[PJ66]

Hi and welcome to the boards. Sorry I can't help with your ?. I have plaque p. I'm sure someone will come along to answer your questions.
Polly

[RichJ]

hi jennmkirby,
sorry i can't help much but welcome to the p family. you will met some of the wonderful people on here and will find alot of great info. welcome and nice to meet you. more will come through with wonderful advise.

have a good day all

richard

[jennmkirby]

Thanks for the kind words Rich and Polly...

I have read a little more by searching the forums for "guttate", and did want to mention that the dermatologist re-cultured my throat because she said my skin looked pretty angry. The culture was negative (not sure whether to be glad or disappointed.) Should I go back and get them to do a blood test? or another culture? I look and feel absolutely wretched!

[kathysangels]

I too recently had an outbreak of guttate psoriasis. I, like you have thousands of little spots all over my body. I have an appointment with my doctor tomorrow. Someone told me that she may have to put me on an antibiotic - that this is usually caused by an infection. I used to think that the large areas of plaque were the worst - but this is even worse!
Good luck - let me know how you are doing!
KG

[wildflowerAnn]

Jen,
Sorry to hear about your severe outbreak. When you say you feel absolutely wretched, we can truly say we know how you feel. One thing that might help is to take naps when your toddler does. I think extra rest helps with the flares.
Ann

[RichJ]

I too recently had an outbreak of guttate psoriasis. I, like you have thousands of little spots all over my body. I have an appointment with my doctor tomorrow. Someone told me that she may have to put me on an antibiotic - that this is usually caused by an infection. I used to think that the large areas of plaque were the worst - but this is even worse!
Good luck - let me know how you are doing!
KG
hi kg,
sorry i can't help much but welcome to the p family. you will met some of the wonderful people on here and will find alot of great info. welcome and nice to meet you. i just wish every one to be clear of p and your welcome jen.

have a good night all

richard

[cereal]

Hey jennmkirby, did the doc do a quickie throat culture? Or did she send it out to a lab to grow for a couple of days?? If she just did the quickie test, ask to be retested, have them send it out to a lab. Any chance your 19 month old could have strep?? You all might be passing it back and forth and not even know it. A person can have strep and have no symptoms.

I had plaque then I had a guttate break out, then the spots grew together to form big areas.

Try not to itch and pick at your skin... I know easier said then done.... cool/cold showers help with the itch, if all else fails put ice on the areas to help with the itch. OTC itch meds may help. If all else fails ask your doc to prescribe a med. I'm taking doxipin for the itching, You may not be able to take it during the day but if you can get some sleep at night your more able to cope with things. I think there is a med called atarax?? not sure of the spelling, it's suppose to be strong but will help with the itch. Try to stay away from fragrances and additives in your soaps, shower gels, laundry detergents. Guess most important is to keep moisturized. I've used aquaphor, eucerin, and possibly every lotion under the sun, it's a personal choice what ever works best for you. You'll pobably find yourself switching products cause something that helps today, will stop working then you try something new, I think we all hace closets full of stuff we have tried then it quit working. Cotton clothing is really comfortable.

If and when you start a new cream, Only put it on a small area at first to see if your allergic to it. Better to have a reaction in one area than all over your body.
HTH!! Hang in there!!

[tmartha]

Welcome Jenn - so sorry to hear of the rough times you're having. I am not knowledgable about guttate but I was wondering the same thing merkinsmom asked - did you have the 24-hour culture for strep or just the quick one? I've had strep many times where the first one was negative. Also, the possibility of your child having it and passing it back to you is something to ask your doc, too. In fact, check out this post from yesterday, by lulu'smom - http://www.psoriasis.org/forum/showthread.php?t=18633 Her daughter's diaper rash was strep and kept reinfecting her for 6 weeks!

Nice info, merkinsmom. My husband took doxipan (sp?) too at night when he had a bad excema outbreak - he was scratching to bleeding in his sleep for weeks, and it helped him sleep without harming himself. It was a big help in his healing.

Best of luck Jenn - keep us posted -
Tani

[lulu'smom]

Welcome Jenn - so sorry to hear of the rough times you're having. I am not knowledgable about guttate but I was wondering the same thing merkinsmom asked - did you have the 24-hour culture for strep or just the quick one? I've had strep many times where the first one was negative. Also, the possibility of your child having it and passing it back to you is something to ask your doc, too. In fact, check out this post from yesterday, by lulu'smom - http://www.psoriasis.org/forum/showthread.php?t=18633 Her daughter's diaper rash was strep and kept reinfecting her for 6 weeks!

Nice info, merkinsmom. My husband took doxipan (sp?) too at night when he had a bad excema outbreak - he was scratching to bleeding in his sleep for weeks, and it helped him sleep without harming himself. It was a big help in his healing.

Best of luck Jenn - keep us posted -
Tani

Tani! Thanks so much for posting this. As I read, my heart just broke. I also have a 19 month old and have had guttate psoriasis for about 8 weeks now. I'm totally miserable, and I know the strep I had for 6 weeks contributed. We just kept getting reinfected by Frances's diaper rash (peri-anal strep).

Have yourself cultured, and also if your 19 month old has any sort of diaper rash, have it looked at!

UV treatments used to really help out with my guttate psoriasis. At this point, I'm going on Humira. I'd been on Enbrel for the past year, mostly because of PA.

Keep posting. I'm curious how you'll do, and I'd like to share our experiences. Also, check into going onto a really strong antibiotic for a 10 day cycle. Sometimes you'll even be perscribed a 30 day or more cycle. Search "strep" on this site for even more info. Even though your first culture showed negative, I strongly believe guttate P has a lot to do with strep.

Good luck!

Nancy

[tmartha]

You're welcome, Nancy - breaks my heart, too, that both of you (all of you) have had to go through this. I've had strep sooo many times and I finally just got the blood test(s) done to make sure that nothing is still in my system, harming me. All I know so far is that my levels are quite elevated - I see a doc Thursday and will get an interpretation of the results. All the times have only ever been prescribed penicillin - I'm just too suspicious not to check it out.

Had never had a derm. or doc of any kind mention a link with p and strep - mine started nearly 20 years ago, maybe they didn't know about possible link? Still don't? All my docs have only ever acted as if it's like the common cold.

Jenn - hoping you're feeling better - looking forward to hearing from you.
Nancy - Humira just might be your thing - it looks like it is for a lot of people. Let us know!

Sending hugs to you both and your babies - you've got the hardest and most marvelous job of all - have you heard of this poem?

"Quiet down cobwebs
Dust go to sleep
I'm rocking my baby
and babies don't keep."

Be well,
Tani (yeah, plenty of dust at my house...) :)

[jennmkirby]

Hi all! Thank you so, so, so much for all the thoughtful advice and kind supportive words. If it weren't for my husband and my mom and this board, I would have just gone nuts over the weekend. The pain I was feeling in my legs is starting to lessen a bit, although definitely still uncomfortable if I get bumped there, and now I'm mostly just dealing with the allover itching and the feeling unattractive. Luckily it's still turtleneck and long pants weather!

Here's the update: this morning, I got on psoriasis.org's "find a doctor" search page, and found several (I was looking for a doc that has the light treatments.) I started calling and got an appointment with my first choice for Wednesday at 9:45! He has all the different types of treatments available and sees "80 patients a month". This sounded good to me.

I had also left a message for the derma that I saw last week to give me a call, that I had had a rough weekend. She finally called me back and we chatted for about 10 minutes. Ironically, she recommended this same doctor, apparently she knows him pretty well and thinks that he could take as good care of what I have as anyone could. What I forgot to mention on here yesterday when I posted was that last week, before I saw her, I had been on prednisone because the nurse practitioner who I saw last monday thought that I had just gotten into some kind of product that irritated my skin. I had taken two days of the prednisone when I went back to the derma, and I just assumed that because it wasn't a product rash and didn't seem to be getting any better, I could just quit taking the prednisone. She said that may have exacerbated what would have already been a bad case of GP, because of the rebound effect... would have been better to taper off prednisone over the next few days, but oh well... too late now.

She said she thought it'd be a good idea to go ahead and do a round of antibiotics just to make sure the strep is all gone, so she called in some kind of new drug (not keflex, but related to that, in the cephalosporin family, which I told her I had read on here was the best thing for strep.) She also thought that would be good just to make sure that none of the spots (where there's open skin and it's all oozing and yucky) get infected. (Cephalosporins are also the standard antibiotic for any kind of skin infection.) AND I told her about the pain I was having and she said she'd call in some tylenol-3 for me to take if it's bad. Which today, it's really not that bad... I may just try to do 800 mg of advil and leave it at that, but it's still nice to have something at the ready if I decide I want it.

So I've started on the antibiotics as of today and have an appointment to see the guy with the lights on Wednesday!

Merkinsmom-It was just the quickie strep test. Probably should have had her do bloodwork or something, but she did go ahead and put me on the antibiotics anyway, so hopefully it'll work! I do have a scrip for atarax (sp?) but it makes me reeeeeally sleepy so only at bedtime. and I still wake up scratching!

Nancy-sorry to hear you're suffering with GP as well! What are they doing to get your daughter cleared up? Hope the humira helps! Is it an RA drug like enbrel? I hope that it doesn't come to that for me, because I'm trying to get pregnant again (yeah right... I have big red itchy spots literally everywhere. I'm feeling really sexy!)

Tani-thanks for the hugs! I love that poem... it definitely is the best job I've ever had! (Stay at home mom... thank God because I definitely would not want to have to go to work in this condition!)

My husband was looking at my shin yesterday and he said "Honey, I gotta hand it to you... you never do anything halfway! That's the most pitiful looking skin I've ever seen." It's like, jeez, can't I ever do anything normally, without drama? I can't even have strep throat and get over it like a normal person. I had a baby... you'd think, hey, go in the hospital and have the kid and come home, right? Not me... I go in to get induced, and after 24 hours of pitocin labor, 2 epidurals that failed and finally a c-section, I have the baby. And he is THE most beautiful little boy in history... who promptly showed signs of having a stroke (a few minor little seizures) and ended up in the NICU for a week! (He's perfectly fine now... they think it was a cord problem during labor.) DRAMA!

[lulu'smom]

Jennmkirby- our situation sounds so similar!

Such great news that you found a derm that sees so many P patients and could see you relatively quickly. I'm switching derms myself. I love my new Rheumy.

My derms neer will believe that strep is related to P, but as far as I've seen, for the last 20 years, my guttate P has always followed a bout with strep. And... I always seem to get strep. Maybe I'm a carrier. This past go around, I was on xythromax twice (don't use it! It didn't clear a darn thing) and then Amox for 10 days. That did it.

Frances (the 19 month old) was on amoxcylin for 10 days as well, and her diaper rash cleared pretty quickly.

Humira is like Enbrel. The aching is almost as bad as the skin. I must have the same sexy shins as you do! My husband also commented on them this weekend. I'm hoping to get out of long pants and long sleeves soon. Most every fabric hurts me, but I hate to show myself.

I also have zero sex drive (sorry if TMI) but I too am covered in red dots. Don't feel all that beautiful. ALso, so very tired and achy and depressed. It all adds up to one low sex drive.

I have been wanting to get a massage, but have been way too embarrassed to go in and have anyone see me naked. I just found thru my insurance I have a discount for medical massage. I also found a Chinese Dr. who specializes in accupuncture & massage. I'm not going to do the accupuncture. But, I feel like she might have some good info for me, and my skin can't be the worst she's seen? ! :)

Tani, you are so sweet! Thanks! I really appreciate the support here.

OK, off to take care of the kids. I go see my Rheumy on Thurs, my Humira arrives on Wed. I'm very excited.

Nancy

[jennmkirby]

I wish you the best of luck with the humira! I really hope it helps with the pain and gets you cleared up. I wondered, have you ever thought about going on an antidepressant? I was on effexor for awhile after I had my son (because I had so much anxiety re: the stroke that he had, and also b/c I'm just generally an obsessive worrier.) Not sure if it would be compatible with humira, but worth looking into.

It's funny... I was telling my husband yesterday that this GP stuff has really made me realize how pointless my worrying is. I guess in some way I figure that if I worry about enough stuff I'm somehow covered (i.e. if I worry enough about heart attacks or something, I won't have one.) But then something else comes along from left field and kicks the crap out of me, and it's always something that I would never have even thought of. (For example, when I first went to the doc with my strep throat a few weeks ago, she put me on antibiotics... that made me worriy it was going to cause me to develop some weird strain of antibiotic resistant strep. And of course I didn't, as far as I know, but instead I'm covered from head to toe in scaly little red spots that itch and in some places hurt.)

[lulu'smom]

I've totally thought of antidepressants, and am going to mention it to my internist.

I know what you mean about worry. I am a chronic worrier. I used to have a theory that my anxiety and worry caused my P. I am sure it contributes to it!

2 more days to Humira!