This was me, laid out on our bed, feeling very itchy on Tuesday night. Two years ago I had a really bad reaction to something that brought me out in blisters on both my right and left hands. After that initial bad reaction I started to get tiny bubbles appearing on the tips of my fingers (which was very frustrating as when playing the violin they would get irritated & eventually pop leaving me with very sore). I gave in and went to the Doctors, they said it was contact eczema (i.e. some outside substance was causing the reaction) & initially prescribed very strong steroid cream, which lead back to scenario 1 (the big blisters).
I carried on thinking that whatever it was hopefully was a seasonal thing and that my hands would go back to normal. They didn’t, finally with fingers that were the same colour as cooked beetroot I went back to the Doctors. I was given a lower dose of steroid cream and very strange substance called double base which is half cream half gel. This seemed to make things much better but the fabulous Doctor Elgar also referred me to the Dermatology unit at the Churchill hospital. Which brings us back to me having samples of 100 substances taped to my back. I had to keep those on for three days & when they were taken off a further 10 were put on my arm (no washing for a week until the results are analysed). After all this the hospital thought they had identified the problem, I am allergic to citronella, so steer clear of lemons and citrus basically. Evil lemons!
