Recent Diagnosis (March 2017)

May 23, 2017


In March of 2017 my wife and I traveled to Nashville to visit family. While I was there I scrapped my left elbow and did not think much of it. Two weeks after we returned a friend of mine saw my elbow and told me it looked weird. I had thought that I had a bug bite on top of the scrape. My friend "M" thought it might be ringworm. I called into work for the next day and went to my doctor, who at that point was very confused by the "spots." The "ringworm" was only on my elbows and knees. She prescribed mw ringworm meds and set a dermatologist apt up for April 17th, a bit away. Over the weekend the spots continued to evolve and spread, not really leaving the knees or elbow area. On Monday when it was still spreading my boss had me return to the doctors office. A different NP asked me to go directly to the dermatologist because she was not confident in diagnosis what was happening to my body. She reported that if it had been ringworm, even this a-typical presentation of ringworm, should have begun to recede and die during the first 48 instead of growing. Her next guess was an a-typical presentation of Hand-foot-mouth, but she didn't really think it was that either. A few Ubers later and a last-minute emergency apt with the dermatologist and he told me it was EM. My wife and I were kind of dumb-founded. We hadn't heard about this before. 

To be honest the diagnosis didn’t hit me for real until the second outbreak less than three weeks later. In early April I had my second outbreak and everything become real to us. It was everywhere, all over my body. I couldn’t believe this was happening. My wife was a champion. She help me while i cried, poured lotions and salves on my spots.

Right now I am not sure if my menstrual cycle or cold sores is the trigger or if it is both in combination. During the last two outbreaks I was about to start my period, which by the way makes it so much worse.  Also, a week before my EM outbreak I had a cold sore. Cross your fingers for me as we keep moving forward and try to learn the triggers and ways to cope with EM. 

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