spontaneous large red itchy welts

[jamie935]

I am a 24 year old female.  About 6 months ago I started getting small red bite-like bumps that would itch like crazy.  They seemed to appear in the morning after sleeping.  My first thought was bed bugs or some other creepy crawlie and we did a sweep of our home and found nothing.  I share a bed with my fiance and our son sleeps in his own room.  Neither of them have been getting the spots.  The itchies would last about a week and when they're gone the skin pigment is slightly darker.  We spent 2 weeks away from home in another state and I still received them there.  Shortly after they seemed to stop.  There was about a 1-2 month period where I did not receive any.  I became pregnant in early April and have since started getting these itchy red bumps on a much greater scale.  They started again showing only in the morning and growing to be slightly larger than the end of a pencil eraser.  Now, they start all throughout the day, i get small red blotchy spots that do not itch at all.  They turn into nickel size swollen intensely itchy bumps that last weeks.  They started on my right upper arm, then my left upper arm was attached.  My right forearm was hit bad and now my left is covered in them.  Sometimes they seem to form a line with a fairly equal distance between them.  I also have been getting them on the tops of both feet and on my fingers/hands.  They last about 2 weeks now.  When they go away, they still have a raised bump that itches but the redness and harsh look is gone.  I've been to an allergist who said it was not hives and referred me to a dermatologist.  I had a biopsy done on a fresh one and am still waiting to hear the results.  I have not been able to find anything online similar to what I have.  I've also switched to a gluten free diet recently because my symptoms matched very closely to those of dermatitis herpetiformis, which comes from gluten intolerance/sensitivity.  The pictures of rashes people suffer with this problem however, don't match mine.  The picture shows the large bumps that developed overnight.  There are two small ones that are starting on the inside of my forearm also.  Tomorrow, they'll be the same size.  Any help is greatly appreciated!

[itchyinmd]

I have the same thing - and have ruled out bedbugs, allergies. Not sure if I can completely rule out some kind of insect bite, maybe the insect is  something so, so small not visible to the eye?

My welts always seem to be around the waist, front and back. So far not on the arms, face or anywhere else. For a while I was thinking maybe it's related to the elastic (maybe something's living in there) on a skirt I wore last week or the sleep shorts I wear, although that would seem a little odd and unusual.  But like everyone else, it seems to appear overnight and then is visible in the morning.

What I find the most unusual is: why is this happening to me recently (maybe in the past 2 months) and not earlier? Not last year, not 10 years ago.  Nothing has changed - I did the same some of you have, washed my bedding, put it to dry on the highest temperature, etc.

And no one else in my family has this.

[pammoe]

Your problem sounds just like mine!  Do your irritations have a white fluid spot in the middle of the nikle size irritation ?  I am going to a dermatologist tomorrow, hoping to get help!!  

[CCassie45]

my arms started to itch a little last night so i scratched them a few minutes later my right arm started swelling and when i touched it it felt really hot. a few minutes later my left arm did the exact same thing. it is still the same this morning. i didn't go outside at all yesterday and really never left the couch all day.I wasn't bitten by anything and hadn't eaten or drank anything new to me.what could this be?

[Cassanovabrown83]

I've got that now. They start out like small mosquito bites and if I scratch them just once they swell into something bout the size of a dime and itch like CRAZY! I have them on my back, under my neck, the lower back of my neckline, and my arms. Some times they will appear on my forehead and when they finally heal on my forehead they leave dark spots. The ones on my body will eventually go down in size and stop itching but always return.

[nancymar]

I started with this the first of the week. I thought it was poison ivy as I had been out to our new lot doing yard work in preparation of putting a new home on it. So when I noticed the rash it kind of looked like poison ivy and I thought I had rubbed against it as I did see poison ivy. But as its turned out I now have terribly itchy welts and it is spreading. It is not poison ivy. I can see the bumps welts still under my skin which I assume will turn into welts on top of my arms. I do have rashes not welts on the inside of my legs down by my knees.

As others have said it seems to really itch at night and not bad thru the day. I had looked up home remedies for itching and I am using organic ACV on a cotton ball. I am keeping it close to use so I won't scratch. I bought some benadryl tonight and will take one before I go to bed even though it hasn't been waking me up.

I am just clueless and it seems to be a waste of money to even go to a doctor from what I've read here. So I will try self medicating first with all home rememdies I can before I decide to go to a doctor.

Good luck to everyone with this horrible whatever it is. I will keep coming back to read should there be a diagnosis made.

[Gabby_11]

Did you ever figure out what they were, I have the same problem and it's driving me crazy!

[Latinqueens]

My problem started about a week ago. I still can't get around what triggered this or where it came from. I have no allergies the exterminators found nothing. My doctor said it's a rash and prescribed hydrocortisone. Still no answers on how? Or what it's from. I usually get the outbreak at night it's now all over my body it itches only when I get up znd through out the day it's gone. I'm scared it's contagious and I'm currently breast feeding. No one is effected but me and my babies tend to come sleep in the bed with me.thank God it's not effecting anyone else because this really *****. Could it be dust mites or hives? Please advise