Saturday, May 3, 2008

Itch, itch. Scratch, scratch.

We have a thing for rashes in my home. My oldest daughter had Scarlet fever fever in kindergarten and missed the field trip to the county fair. My middle daughter had roseola on her first birthday and slept through her party. As an adult, I have developed some quite inconvenient allergies.

During college, I developed an allergy to a prescription cold medication. The ingredient which caused my reaction is found in most daytime varieties of over-the-counter cold medications and I recently developed a rash on my hands and arms just from taking two pills out of the package for my husband.

Last weekend, I found a new allergy. I am now six days into a terrible reaction to sunscreen that I used while on vacation. Ironic that I, a sun-loving person who is normally irresponsible in my sun-protection use, would be allergic to sunscreen. I have sedated myself with Benadryl (worked the first night), covered my affected skin with ointment, soaked in oatmeal baths, and tried countless other remedies. One well-meaning person gave me a Benadryl stick to apply the first night. The thought of applying that to my outbreak, dot by dot, made me laugh, giving me a momentary distraction.

Excuse me now, I need to go avoid scratching my back.