Celiac And Dh?

[aedems]

My daughter is almost 6. She has been in the 5% percentile or lower for all of her life and the past 2 years has "fallen off the charts" and now has even fallen off her own growth curve. We have seen and are still seeing an endocrinologist. All of the life-threatening problems such as kidney failure and liver failure have been ruled out and most genetic diseases of short stature. The only thing that came back high was one of the antibodies for celiac, but the more conclusive test came back negative (when she was 4).

Anyway, about 15 days ago, she started with a rash around both her ankles. I took her to the doctors who thought it was poison ivy and he gave her hydrocortisone cream. She was fine, though continued with the rash, until about four days ago. She went to school with two "pox-like" marks on her face. By the time she came home from school she was covered in smaller marks, but clustered. I took her to the doctors and they thought she had chickenpox. She went back to the doctors the next day because her face was swelling a bit and she had more clusters of rashes around her wrists, inside of elbows and on her stomach. He and another doctor he called in were not sure what she had and sent us to a dermatologist. The dermatologist said it is a very intruiguing rash.... looks like chickenpox, poison ivy, scabies, etc. He put her on an antibiotic, a steroid cream, a fungal cream and a medication for mites (he did a scraping and did not see any evidence of scabies or fungus, but because of her condition wanted to just get rid of the rash). The antibiotic has helped in that it got rid of her swelling and red face, which the dermatologist and I both believe was secondary to a bacterial infection from itching, but she still has the rash.

So....mom is playing Nancy Drew and got on the internet. I think she has dermatitis herpetiformis (DH) and celiac. It just seems to fit.....short stature, rash and possibly elevated celiac antibody levels.

Any thoughts on the subject?

[lovegrov]

Obviously I can't diagnose online, but her rash sounds nothing like the DH I had. In fact, my DH didn't really resemble a rash. More like blisters. Other symptoms certainly seem to suggest possible celiac, though.

richard

[Ursa Major]

Check out these DH images to see if they resemble your daughter's rash. Personally, I do believe that it can often look a lot like chicken pox. The second website is excellent, and shows DH in many places (click on the links on the left to see it on other body sites).

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