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I just wondered if any of you were suffering from the following skin disorder. It does not respond to the various treatments I’ve tried. I have been plagued with it for over a year now and I’ve previously never been troubled with spots.
There’s no pus involved, they’re not like a typical spot with a head, that people normally get. They start as a tiny bump and turn into non-healing sores. If you leave them alone, they don’t go away, they develop and widen and the thin circular sides grow upwards at 90 degrees to the skin.
They are mildly irritating, yet extremely sore if you scratch them. The surface is extremely tough and whatever is inside them seems to erode the tissue and penetrate quite deep, leaving quite a crater. They can eventually appear to heal but leave a sort of scar which turns the skin a pinkish shade where they’ve been BUT at any time, they can become active again.
Hairs grow out of them that are more profuse and much longer and darker (and grow much faster) than those on the surrounding tissue. On the whole I find it quite weird.
Does anyone else have these ?Barbara,
Hmmmm… I’m so sorry you’re experiencing such a puzzling symptom… I, myself, have strange skin issues that are chronic, but nothing quite like that.
Do these happen on only one part of the body or are they placed randomly?
I will keep my eyes and ears open, so if I learn of any possibility, I will chime in…
(I love researching random things :-))Take care,
~Kelly~
Barbara,
I can’t say that I have encountered anything quite like your description. What part of the body are they showing up on? If it is on a hard surface such as the soles of your feet or palms, it kind of sounds like a type of wart. I have seen these in many presentations. Pictures would always help 🙂
Jess
Hi, thank you for your enquiries. The sores only appear on the outer side of my arms, shoulders, face (aaarrgh!) and down the middle of my back. I have had the odd one or two on my body but not many. Had they not appeared right down my back, I would have thought they may have been related to the sun – although I don’t get that much!
None have occured on the inner surface of my arms, so I thought maybe they don’t like friction, or pressure. I also found it odd that none appeared on my legs and wondered if the support hose I wear, protected me somehow. Although, last summer I went without the support hose for an afternoon, wearing my shorts and I brushed into a spider web and a crop of little sores sprung up where the web had draped – odd.
Trouble is, with them not responding other than superficially to treatments, added to the fact that they sprung up and spread fast and furious, I was very nervous that they might be contagious and daren’t touch or hug anybody. So, if anyone has been successful in getting rid of something similar, I would greatly appreciate knowledge of their treatment protocol.
I’ll sort out some photo’s (because what I found was very odd and unusual, I did take quite a few!) and post them.
Here’s a couple of photos, one shows the early stage of the sore with the lumps just starting, they sometimes come in pairs as shown here. The other shows some as they progress and become sore, showing some of the extent, distribution etc.
Jess, you mention warts and, even though they might look slightly like them in the first picture, they are not hard initially, they are soft and easy to remove, for instance just as you’re washing in the bath or shower and rubbing over with a soapy scrunchy.
Before this rash started I had an intense itching on my upper back for quite some months but nothing was visible with the naked eye except some tiny red and purple dots, like those which are seen when someone is vitamin C deficient – but I knew I wasn’t.
I bought a USB digital microscope for my PC, so I could look more closely and saw a very fine white coating affecting my fine body hair. I epilated every scrap off and the itching ceased.
I did notice at the time, using this microscope, that I had a crop of small red and yellow marks under the surface of my skin.
I had wondered when I saw the red and yellow underskin markings whether my body was just getting rid of toxins, as I had just lost a couple of stones in weight (intentionally) and I knew that toxins were stored in fat so, maybe it was just my body processing it all and expelling them from my body. As more and more sores appeared, I did seem to be getting more energy – I thought, “was it coincidence?”
With the microscope I could see the sores that were forming. They were either teardrop shaped or circular and had a defined perimeter. If you did knock the top off they would fill with an clear amber or colourless gel, very quickly, and often there was profuse amounts of this liquid gel, far in excess for the size of the sore, which I thought was odd. This gel sets like glue forming a really ‘tough to remove’ surface.
As I said in my first post, if you ignored the sores and left them alone, they would continue to grow and the edges of the sore would grow upwards from the skin
Do you notice all the tiny holes in the gel, once it has set ? It’s like whatever is underneath penetrates it.
Now as I said, these gel tops are really tough to remove and whatever is going on underneath, is really painful. It’s like when you start to interfere with it, it releases some enzyme, which might as well be acid, as it hurts like crazy, getting straight to the nerve.
Once you get this ‘gel top’ off, it’s the weirdest thing, it’s definately not skin, as it’s like looking through plastic but, the reason it’s so difficult to get off, is that it has loads of spine-like things, growing into your tissue underneath, check this out!
Hi Barbara,
I had something similar that turned out to be folliculitis. Looked just like those images you’ve posted and I experienced similar phenomena. They were localized. Mine were on my outer arms and shoulders, and then on my calf not far from a gigantic surgery scar. Sometimes they were very inflamed– like if I was having a histamine reaction to food or if I picked at them. I noticed they were sensitive to the sun, but I knew they weren’t caused by the sun. They healed very slowly. After many years and tons of scarring, I finally had a biopsy that confirmed folliculitis. While I’m certain histamine played a role, in keeping them inflamed and active, a loooong round of antibiotics cleared it up almost entirely where no previous interventions had done anything to help at all. I highly recommend you go to a dermatologist who will likely take a biopsy which will help you to know what they are, or at least what they aren’t. Skin problems are tricky to dx.Hi, thank you for your response. I wonder if they are of the same cause. I was referred to a dermatologist, who seemed very thorough, she carried out loads of blood tests (and I mean loads, even called me in for more blood tests) and 2 skin biopsies. My only regret about the skin biopsies was that I was called in at short notice, after I’d asked to be given notice because I wanted them to biopsy a ‘virgin’ sore, if you like, that had developed where I hadn’t removed the initial top and the plastic/gel formation(s) and all that goes with it. Unfortunately there were no sores available which were in their original state.
She said they couldn’t find anything untoward that was causing it and that she’d even spoken to the pathologist again to make sure (I couldn’t believe it! . . . and you’ll understand why, as I post more of what I found).
Really, antibiotics were successful, that’s great, I’d be interested to know which one and, you said you had to take it a looong time, so just how long did you have to take it before you noticed a difference and, before you stopped taking it ?
Shoot. Well, if you already went in for a biopsy then it’s probably not folliculitis which is caused by staph and I can’t imagine they wouldn’t have tested for that. The doctor didn’t suggest any ‘shot in the dark’ treatments?
Hm… I actually just did an extensive google search (because I might have a little bit of OCD tendencies when it comes to researcher the interwebz for skin lesions) of all the symptoms (gelly, spiny, spikey, scab, lesion, root) and descriptions you’ve provided and all I can come up with is morgellons… which is a bit of a head-scratcher, so to speak.
Google ‘scab with roots’.
http://morgellonsdiseaseawareness.com/morgellons_photo_galleries/morgellons_anatomy_of_a_lesion
Are fungal infections ever gel-like?
Lol, I’m a bit the same with research! To answer your questions, I found there is actually a ‘jelly fungus’, there’s also a type with spikes that protrude down from the cap, though I don’t think either normally grow on human beings!
My dermatologist prescribed Fucidin H topical, I’ve been on and off this for over a year, it seems to soften the gel tops but not stop new sores occuring. I’m also using Dermol 500 (it’s a microbial) to wash with, which makes the sores less red around the edges, that’s all.
Funny you should mention Morgellons, I ended up on sooo many sites to do with Morgellons. Thank you so much for the link because, I hadn’t found one that showed the gel tops like mine but this one does. Trouble is, if you mention you think it’s Morgellons, you end up with a Delusional Parasitosis diagnosis and on psych meds (which just dumb you down and stop you complaining)- how unjust is that!
I think Morgellons is just a ‘holding-name’, i.e. we’ll call it that for the time being until we find out what it really is. I know there’s nothing delusional about what I’m suffering (or maybe I was imagining the spikes, lol!)
The spiked fungus type is called a hydnum. I’ve just searched for ‘Jelly Hydnum’ and it brought up Pseudohydnum Gelatinosum (toothed jelly fungus, or false hedgehog fungus) which, if it was fully transparent, might have similarities but, it occurs on well-rotted coniferous wood – which I can find nowhere in my body!
Though these spiked gel tops that come off my skin are really tough, nothing at all like a mushroom, more like tough plastic.
I’ve found my letter from the Dermatologist which, when talking about the biopsies says, no findings of pathological organisms . . . some changes supporting spongiotic change, consistent with eczema.
Hi Barb, Eczema is a real possibility, especially if those “spikes” are toward the skin side (not the air side). When toward the skin side, those “spikes” may be scaling down into the hair follicles. It’s hard to tell, but if the spikes are on the AIR side, that would be more indicative of some strange fungus or what not. I would think the dermatologist could have ruled out fungi because that is a dramatic presentation when biopsied — an easy diagnosis. Eczema is a broad diagnosis — there are SO MANY forms and manifestations, and it can be chronic — a real bear to treat effectively, sadly.
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