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Thanks, that's interesting. Yes it's the same rash. The irritation on the back of my knees and bits of the side of tummy/back seemed to come and go, the ones on my arms seemed to get more blistery. It wasn't as bad when I saw a GP the week before and I only mentioned it in passing to note yet another rash with raised white blood cells. I must admit I had initially disregarded shingles as I had bits in more than one place then mainly on both arms, even though more on one.
I thought the GP (different one to who I saw the week before) would say not shingles and I'd maybe get a dermatology referral to also look into the hidradenitis suppurativa which rhumo said I probably have as I've read there are treatments and want to stop that interfering with arthritis meds too.
I guess whether 100% or not they'd probably err on the side of caution with anti-virals in case they didn't and it all went a bit wrong. I'm really suffering on them though, upset my stomach badly like antibiotics do now though only it seems since I've been on methotrexate.
I've had a burning sensation as well as the itching though not as severe as I thought it'd be though GP agreed that could be as I'm already on 4 pregabalin a day anyway. It's weird as I've had a burning pain down my foreams for a while on and off but for longer that I'd have thought could be attributable to shingles, strangely I was on the look out a bit ago as I was worried a rash would appear due to the pain in case of shingles but it didn't, until now! I mentioned it to someone, will see if I can find the message when as to how long ago.
It's less blistery now, still red but looks like it's drying up, the other less affected arm (up round the elbow area there, more on a line down my arm in splodges then the worse cluster is on my wrist and back of my hand) has dried up much more which is good but I guess they won't be able to take samples now? At least I know for future, although touch wood I won't need to, some more things to ask.