I grew up experiencing this heat rash throughout my entire adolescent life. I’m 49 years old now and I still get the itchy feeling after a hot shower.
About 15 years ago this same rash came and never left. I was shocked! The entire time I had experienced this, it always disappeared after about 30 minutes. This time was different and it was horrifying. I went to the doctor and they tried everything! I was even on steroids for 5 years and anti-itch medication to try to control the symptoms. Biopsies were performed and still nothing! My dermatologist diagnosed me with dermatitis herpetiformis. As we all know, doctors don’t have all of the answers, but he was closer than most. He increased my dosage of steroids and the anti-itch medications to control the symptoms and put me on a gluten free diet.
That meant that I couldn’t eat any processed foods. No bread, cheese, nothing out of a box, etc. I could only eat meat, vegetables, rice, seafood, etc., and no spicy foods. This did help tremendously! Not eating the things I enjoyed at least some of the time was very frustrating, so I started taking Benadryl every once in a while so that I could enjoy a dinner roll with my meal on occasion. This did help.
My mom and I were doing some research online after my diagnosis and we read that ibuprofren accelerates the symptoms. I was taking ibuprofren for bad headaches as that is what a doctor suggested I take instead of prescribing medication. I stopped taking the ibuprofren and the heat rash disappeared completely!
I started eating bread again and still no rash! I was so excited. All the time it seemed to be an allergic reaction to ibuprofren and my long time rash problem was gone! Well not exactly, because the doctor was right!
My body can’t digest wheat and gluten like other people’s can, so I have to lay off of the processed food AND stop taking ibuprofren, then the rash will be controllable! Not completely gone, but controllable. The less processed foods I eat, the better off I am and I no longer have to take any medications for my symptoms.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that this is your problem, but it may help someone out there. If it does, then taking the time to type this was surely worth it.
One more thing . . . my nephew had large whelps on him from being allergic to ibuprofren instead of the heat rash like I did, so this is definitely genetic. My sister and I are the only two in our family that actually have the heat rash.
Good luck to you all!
-Jackie
Hivesguy says
Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience with everyone, Jackie! It was really nice of you to write so much detail. I’m sure many people will find it very helpful.