Bullous Pemphigoid

[eLaurie]

Bullous pemphigoid is autoimmune in nature and causes skin redness with 1cm or larger blisters.

It usually occurs at 60 years old or older, but I (40yo) woke up yesterday morning with a small patch of it on my torso. I was of course, freaked out, searched my bed for spiders, went to the doctor (general family practice) thinking it was shingles. He said the blisters were too large, and that he reallly didn't know what it was (no recent contact to anything unusual, didn't look like a bite). A friend who is a gerontological nurse practitioner looked at it last night and diagnosed it as bullous pemphigoid. She's seen a few cases since she works with the elderly.

She gave me this link: (picture is in the signs and symptoms section)

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Thank God, mine isn't as bad as this. It looks exactly like it, but I only have a 2 1/2 inch swath of redness and two blisters.

[Fiddle-Faddle]

Interesting. I wonder if it's related to dermatitis herpetiformis? Or perhaps, like IBS, it actually IS a celiac-related condition, they just call it bullous pemphagoid because they've never heard of celiac?

[eLaurie]

Interesting. I wonder if it's related to dermatitis herpetiformis? Or perhaps, like IBS, it actually IS a celiac-related condition, they just call it bullous pemphagoid because they've never heard of celiac?

That's pretty much my thinking as well. I haven't read much about it - have just been so relieved to know what it was. I've never had dermatitis herpetiformis, but 'autoimmune anything' these days makes me wonder if Celiac is involved.

Interestingly, I felt "glutened" all day Friday (headache, big D all day), and had eaten out (safely, I thought, on Thursday). Saturday at 3 AM I woke up with the blisters. I'm guessing there is a connection.

[little flower]

That's pretty much my thinking as well. I haven't read much about it - have just been so relieved to know what it was. I've never had dermatitis herpetiformis, but 'autoimmune anything' these days makes me wonder if Celiac is involved.

Interestingly, I felt "glutened" all day Friday (headache, big D all day), and had eaten out (safely, I thought, on Thursday). Saturday at 3 AM I woke up with the blisters. I'm guessing there is a connection.

Hello,

I have some at the moment. They occur a few days after I've been glutened and come up on the sole and side of my right foot. This time a few have joined up and become a biggish blister which makes walking painful. I keep sticking a needle in to let the clear liquid out. I don't know what else to do about it, except try not to get glutened!

Julie

[Fiddle-Faddle]

I did have shingles many years ago, and when my DH-type rash occured, it LOOKED very much like the shingles rash except it wasn't confined to one nerve pathway. It was on both arms, and completely symmetrical. In fact, that was how I discovered the gluten connection--I googled "symmetrical rash" and thyroid (I assumed it had something to do with my thyroid as I'v had autimmune thyroid disease for at least 20 years) and found all kinds of link to celiac.

But while my DH-type rash looked like shingles (except for the pathway), it sure didn't feel like it! I'd say it was a million times WORSE than shingles. Then again, I'm older now; maybe I just don't deal with things like that as well as I used to.

I wonder if people with gluten problems are the ones who end up with shingles. Maybe that's why some people get shingles and most don't. Shingles is a reactivation of the chicken pox virus, which remains in the body forever, even after you're over the chicken pox; I have also read that the varicella vaccine, which is supposed to protect against chicken pox, has resulted in more people developing shingles than ever before. Hmm, hmm, lots of possible connections .

[lookat]

My wife has Bullous Pemphigoid and is taking broad spectrum antibiotics, topical steroid cream and anti-itching pills and after 2 months has improved but the rashes reoccur on the hands and feet in certain areas and continue to itch and make life almost unbearable for her. She is 73 years of age. Can she be suffering this skin condition because of a wheat gluten allergy? We found that wheat and gluten are not only in bread and flour but in practically every canned or processed food in our home. It will be quite a task to remove wheat and thus, gluten from our diet because we will have to fully adhere to the label information on all foods we eat and drink for a certain period of time to see if both of us may benefit from the change in diet and perhaps, even her skin condition. She has been previously diagnosed with Immune Deficiency Disease also called Graves Disease, but is it that simple? Might a wheat free life might just be the answer?

Any ideas of recommendations besides just saying do the immune reduction therapy which has a list of terrible side effects that are mostly life threatening to go through with this instead of the possible alternative to get rid of wheat and all wheat gluten from our diets, both her and myself as well?