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Does This Sound Like Dh?

kbidarch

By kbidarch
in Dermatitis Herpetiformis

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kbidarch Apprentice
kbidarch
Posted

My 7 year old son developed a rash slightly below his left elbow, and one directly above his ankle, in the Summer of 2009. It's been around for 10 months now. Probably about 1.5"-2" sized area. It's like a collection of small bug bites, in appearance, itches profusely, and sometimes oozes clear. It's been diagnosed as staph and treated as such, diagnosed as a slight Chicken Pox (since he had the vaccine, his doctor thought he'd gotten a "light" case), diagnosed as scabies (which I disagreed with profusely), as mosquito bites, you name it. We've had some mild luck with triple-antibiotic ointment and anti-itch cream, but he still ended up scratching it til it was raw and bleeding. I suggested DH to the doctor - as I had long suspected Celiac with him. I was told that it was "rare and unlikely" - and besides, his Celiac blood test 5 years ago was negative. (He's had a whole slew of Celiac symptoms - diarrhea, slow growth, daily stomach upset, profuse and sudden nosebleeds lasting 2 hours -- multiple times a month...)

WELL, his sister (age 3) was diagnosed as non-Celiac gluten-intolerant one week ago today. We've been gluten free since Saturday morning. We've only had to use the anti-itch cream once since then (on Sunday), and I noticed yesterday that the bumps are almost all gone. It's still slightly inflammed, and definitely still red, but probably 70% fewer bumps in the area.

Is this typical of DH? Nothing else has changed that I can think of. I'm irritated however, that I'm sure we'll still be lacking a Celiac diagnosis if this is indeed DH.

(On a related note -- if it IS DH and he does have Celiac, do you suppose I'd be safe to say his sister has Celiac, too? Her antigliadin levels were highly elevated, however the scope only turned up damage to the esophogus and stomach and not small intestine - though she did have elevated white blood count in the intestine tissue...she's had a ridiculous slew of traditional Celiac symptoms....)

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RoseTapper Newbie
RoseTapper
Posted

Yes, you're describing a very typical case of DH. Please note, though, that you should also be removing iodine from your son's diet, as well. Generally, both iodine AND gluten need to be ingested to produce a DH rash. Just FYI.

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