Help me diagnose this rash/bite? **Now with moar picures**

[musicalsilver]

DH noticed these on LO when he was giving him his bath tonight.  The bigger ones appear to be multiple little bumps in the larger red area. They don't appear to bother him in the least, so that's good at least.

LO claims that an ant bit him, but I don't know how much stock to put in that given we really don't know when it happened.

I feel like I remember seeing some (much) smaller red (just a little pink, really) bumps particularly on his back, maybe yesterday.

DH put a little hydrocortisone on one of them to see how it'd react.  I figure if they look worse in the morning I'll call the pedi - but they don't seem too worrying.

I kept the images big so it'd be easier to see?  I can make them smaller if they're obnoxious.

He's got a couple on his back, and a whole cluster on the back of that arm.



There are two red spots on his front - the bigger one looks like it has about four little bumps in it.

[workinit]

It's not mosquito bites?

[moosemug]

Does he react strongly to mosquito bites? A friend of mine has an LO who gets huge red spots with mosquito bites. Or, has he been rolling in the grass? Do you have chiggers in your area?

[musicalsilver]

workinit - I don't think so. It's in an area that is covered with clothes all the time that he's outside, and he's never had a reaction like that before.

It's the little bumps inside the larger red area that's really throwing me through a loop. The smaller ones just have one, but the bigger ones have multiple ones. Which doesn't seem very mosquito-y.

I'm tempted to believe ants ... I'll have to see how they look tomorrow. He's had ant bites in the past, and they get little puss-filled heads at the foci of the little bumps. It's just not in a very ant-y kind of place.

Anyway, super confused.

[musicalsilver]

moosemug - he's never had a reaction to mosquitoes before, but I suppose there's a first time for everything.

LO did do on awful lot of laying down in the grass/in weird places yesterday evening. I suppose it could be chiggers, I'll have to look into that, because I don't know anything about those.

[cl8badb]

Jun 23, 2015 20:26:32 GMT -5 workinit said:

It's not mosquito bites?

Thats kind of what my mosquito bites look like.
Could be.

Ive been bitten by an ant on my foot and i didnt get marks. Could be a different type of ant though.

[workinit]

D was (or so he says) stung by a bee the other day. It looked bad. Maybe a bee? I have no clue what an ant bite looks like!

[musicalsilver]

Jun 23, 2015 20:36:05 GMT -5 cl8badb said:

Jun 23, 2015 20:26:32 GMT -5 workinit said:

It's not mosquito bites?

Thats kind of what my mosquito bites look like.
Could be.

Ive been bitten by an ant on my foot and i didnt get marks. Could be a different type of ant though.

I guess because I've never had a mutli-foci mosquito bite I'm disinclined to think it's that.  And he's never reacted to them before.  If he was going to - I'd expect it to be in normal mosquito bite places like his arms or legs.

LO has definitely reacted to some ants in our yard before - but like I said they looked a bit different.  So it's still a possibility.

It's just in such a weird place!

[musicalsilver]

Jun 23, 2015 20:38:50 GMT -5 workinit said:

D was (or so he says) stung by a bee the other day. It looked bad. Maybe a bee? I have no clue what an ant bite looks like!

Possible - there are just so many of them! 

[workinit]

I bet there's an oil for that!

[musicalsilver]

Jun 23, 2015 21:25:01 GMT -5 thelorax said:

Flea bites?

He hasn't been on any meds recently?

No meds or even any new foods as far as I can determine.

I'll try googling pictures of flea bites ... I really hope that's not it! None of our animals have been extra itchy, so I'm crossing my fingers that that's not it.

[musicalsilver]

So it's been changing over the last a couple of days. I was going to take him to the pediatrician today, but after reading a note on their website about how they rarely figure out what cause rashes and they generally go away in a week, I figured I'd give it the week since he has absolutely no other symptoms, and it doesn't seem to bother him at all still. We've been putting hydrocortisone on it in the mornings and at night, and the pinkness has disappeared just leaving the kind of red foci. Any thoughts?

[musicalsilver]

Jun 26, 2015 20:16:22 GMT -5 classictwitch said:

Maybe a spider bite? Or a wasp? I get horrific rash/bites from them...I would take him in to the doctor. But I'm always a worst case scenario type, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

Everything I've read about spider bites say that they're generally just one bite (same as I'd imagine with the wasp), so the multiple places on his front and back just confuse the heck out of me. 

We'll be taking him in at the beginning of the week if it doesn't clear up appreciably this weekend.  I tend to be at the opposite end of the taking to the doctor spectrum, so I just want a reality check in case I'm being silly.

[PSNLS]

I was bit by ants in middle school. The bites puffed up immediately but then went away with ice and Benadryl. Have you tried putting an ice pack over the sites to see if it helps?

[musicalsilver]

Jun 26, 2015 20:27:35 GMT -5 PSNLS said:

I was bit by ants in middle school. The bites puffed up immediately but then went away with ice and Benadryl. Have you tried putting an ice pack over the sites to see if it helps?

I haven't.  Since they haven't seemed to bother him, I've just let it be apart from the hydrocortisone to hopefully help it clear up quicker.  I'm definitely leaning in the ant bite direction over anything else at this point.  It's just such a weird place!!!

[huckleberry08]

I hate to even suggest this, but could it be some kind of mite, like scabies?

[musicalsilver]

Jun 26, 2015 20:35:19 GMT -5 huckleberry08 said:

I hate to even suggest this, but could it be some kind of mite, like scabies?

Things like that generally say they are accompanied by some serious itching (I've looked into it, because well, I'm running out of ideas!), and it just doesn't bother him at all.  I think he only noticed it at all because I keep talking about putting cream on it. 

[workinit]

Omg so this is going to sound bad but my local news station just did a story on bed bugs and the spots looked like your pictures

[musicalsilver]

Jun 27, 2015 5:21:30 GMT -5 workinit said:

Omg so this is going to sound bad but my local news station just did a story on bed bugs and the spots looked like your pictures

yikes!

Definitely hope that's not it! I've been sleeping in LO's bed the last couple of nights ... maybe it's at his school? Because nobody else here has bites ...

[workinit]

Ok so someone just posted on my Facebook about swimming in shallow lake water and having tons of little bites called swimmers itch.... Kinda looks like what you posted....

[workinit]

Apparently I'm passionate about this!

[musicalsilver]

workinit I very much appreciate the enthusiasm! We haven't done any lake swimming lately, so I doubt that's it.

I suspect we'll only get some maybe answers at the pediatrician's on Monday!

LO woke up uncomfortable last night, and complained about his arm (where some of the rash/bite is). He's totally been leaving it alone again today.

Still hoping it's just something like a reaction to some ant bites. But I have noooo idea. It's just so weird!

[huckleberry08]

Any updates musicalsilver? I'm so curious.

[musicalsilver]

huckleberry08,

So I wound up not taking him in to the pediatrician today because it's finally getting better. It looks like the hydrocortisone cream was actually spreading it around. So like the two discrete dots on his chest, I'd been slathering on the cream just all around it, and it spread to that whole area. So Saturday morning it looked really terrible and DH and I finally put two and two together with the the cream spreading the rash, and quit using it. And it's been getting a lot better.

Since it seems to be "spreadable" in the local area (it hasn't spread since we quit using the cream, and it never spread out of the general area), we're calling it poison ivy. My mom gets really inflamed from it too. The itching seems minimal, so that's still really weird, but since it's a million times better than it was on Saturday, we're letting it slide. He didn't wake up complaining about it last night either, so that's an improvement too.

Obviously if it doesn't clear up in the next couple days I'll still take him in, but we're on the mend! But still confused.

[skk]

musicalsilver These kiddos like to keep us on our toes, right? I'm glad it's getting better and hope it clears right up without throwing you for another loop.

[musicalsilver]

Jun 30, 2015 5:53:46 GMT -5 thatblondie said:

I had swimmers itch one year and it covered my entire body immediately. That definitely looks different.

Eczema? Are there still new spots appearing?

Fortunately no! Since we stopped "treating" it it's been clearing up.