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Rushes
Skin rushes come in all forms and sizes. Some are raised bumps, others are flat red blotches. Some are itchy blisters; others are pathes of rough skin. Most rashes are harmless and clear up on their own within a few days. A few may need medical attention. The skin is one of the first areas of the body to react when exposed to something you or your child is allergic to. The chart that follows lists information on some common skin rashes.
Summer activities increase the chance of developing skin rashes. Skin rashes may appear with too much sun or heat exposure, contact with certain plants, or insect bites. Keep in mind, rashes are not always the result of an allergic reaction.
Sun/Heat Rash
Fair skinned individuals are more prone to develop sun rash.
Small reddish blisters or small or large spots appear on areas of the skin that have been exposed to sunlight. This rash, which can appear immediately or within a few hours, is extremely itchy. The best way to prevent this rash is to wear a high sun protection factor sun screen while in the sun.
Photoallergic Dermatitis
Exposure to the sun can sometimes cause adverse reactions for some people. These reactions are often caused by the action of the sun on skin exposed to the chemicals found in cosmetics, perfumes, soaps, topical medications or sun tan lotions.
Drug-Induced Photosensitivity
Also some medications may make an individual sun sensitive. This is known as drug-induced photosensitivity. A skin rash may develop for people who take birth control pills, blood pressure medicine, antihistamines, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and some antibiotics.
Prickly Heat
A common rash caused by perspiration retention is miliaria, commonly known as prickly heat. Heat and humidity play a big role in causing prickly heat. When the sweat ducts become clogged or plugged by prolonged exposure to perspiration, they break open, allowing sweat to escape just below the skin which causes the rash.
Plant Rashes
Everyone is familiar with the rash caused by poison oak, poison ivy, or poison sumac.
Scaly patches of skin not caused by infection:
Scaly, itchy skin patches usually represent one of the conditions referred to as eczema.
Atopic dermatitis: Atopic dermatitis is perhaps the most common form of eczema. This is an hereditary skin problem that often begins in childhood as chapped cheeks and scaly patches on the scalp, arms, legs, and torso. Later in childhood atopic dermatitis may affect the inner aspects of the elbows and knees. Adults get atopic dermatitis on the hands, around the eyelids, on the genitals, as well as on the body as a whole.
The word "dermatitis" means inflammation of the skin. "Atopic" refers to diseases that are hereditary, tend to run in families, and often occur together. These diseases include asthma, hay fever, and atopic dermatitis. In atopic dermatitis, the skin becomes extremely itchy and inflamed, causing redness, swelling, cracking, weeping, crusting, and scaling.
Atopic dermatitis comes and goes, often for no obvious reason. It is often worse in the winter months, when the air is cold and dry, however, moisturizing alone does not help much.
Patients with atopic dermatitis may have allergies, but most cases of atopic dermatitis are not themselves allergic. In general foods, soaps, and detergents do not play a meaningful role in producing this condition. Atopic dermatitis is not contagious, even though patches may appear on various parts of the body.
Contact dermatitis: Contact dermatitis is an often-misused term which refers to a rash brought on by contact with a specific material which causes allergy on the skin. Common examples are poison ivy and reactions to costume jewelry containing nickel. Contact dermatitis affects just those parts of the skin touched by whatever material causes the allergy.
Treatment of contact dermatitis involves avoiding a specific cause, if there is one. Most contact dermatitis is not allergic, however, and therefore can be treated but not prevented. Effective topical (external) include topical steroids, including over-the-counter 1% hydrocortisone and many prescription-strength creams, as well as the newer nonsteroidal medications tacrolimus (Protopic) and pimecrolimus (Elidil).
There are of course many other scaly rashes. Two worth mentioning are psoriasis, an hereditary condition affecting elbows, knees, and elsewhere, and pityriasis rosea, which produces scaly patches on the chest and back and generally disappears in about a month. Xerosis, very dry skin, may also appear as a rash during the cold, dry months of the year.
Scaly patches of skin produced by fungus or bacterial infection:
When infections appear as rashes, the most common culprits are funguses or bacterial infections.
Fungal infections: Fungal infections are fairly common but don\'t appear nearly as often as rashes in the eczema category. Perhaps the most common diagnostic mistake made by both patients and non-dermatology physicians is to call scaly rashes "a fungus." For instance, someone with several scaly spots on the arms, legs, or torso is much more likely to have a form of eczema or dermatitis than actual "ringworm" (the layman\'s term for fungus.)
Fungal infections have nothing to do with hygiene -- clean people get them too. Despite their reputation, fungal rashes are not commonly caught from dogs or other animals, nor are they easily transmitted in gyms, showers, pools, or locker rooms. In most cases they are not highly contagious between people either.
Treatment is usually straightforward. Many effective antifungal creams can be bought that the drug store without a prescription, including clotrimazole 1% and terbinafine 1%.
Bacterial infections: The most common bacterial infection of the skin is impetigo. Impetigo is caused by staph or strep germs and is much more common in children than adults. Again, poor hygiene plays little or no role. Nonprescription antibacterial creams like bacitracin or Neosporin are not very effective. Oral antibiotics or prescription-strength creams like Bactroban are usually needed. For more, please read the Impetigo article.
Red itchy bumps or patches all over the place:
Outbreaks of this sort are usually either viral or allergic.
Viral rash: While viral infections of the skin itself, like herpes or shingles (a cousin of chickenpox), are mostly localized to one part of the body, viral rashes are more often symmetrical and everywhere. Patients with such rashes may or may not have other viral symptoms like coughing, sneezing or an stomach upset (nausea). Viral rashes usually last a few days to a week and go way on their own.
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