Pompholyx

[ABQturkey]

My son's celiac panel came back negative (his sister was off the charts and has been gluten-free for almost 2 years now). He was 13 at the time and I didn't want to put him through a biopsy (he's 15 now). For the past 6 or 7 months (maybe even more) he's had this rash on his hand and it spread to some of his fingers and now over to the other hand. The dermatologist diagnosed pompholyx and gave a strong steroid cream which worked at first but now doesn't seem to be doing anything at all. I'm wondering if it's due to gluten? Has anyone else heard of this condition being associated with celiac disease?

[jilliebear]

I was kind of in the same situation before I knew I had any food allergies or sensitivities. I had the most horrible rash and blisters all over my inner hand and fingers and for years doctors could not get it under control. Through an elimination diet, I found out that I am completely intolerant to gluten, although I have never been medically diagnosed with celiac disease because I refuse to go back to eating gluten for the amount of time needed for the tests. After I cut gluten out of my diet, the skin problems that I had been dealing with on my hands completely disappeared. So in my experience, the skin problems that I had were absolutely related to gluten intolerance. Aside from that, my best advice is to be careful with skin creams and lotions - the only flare up I've had was when I didn't read the ingredient list on some lotion carefully enough and within a matter of hours of me putting the cream on my hands, I started to see the rash come back.

Hope this helps!

[ravenwoodglass]

Did the derm do a biopsy to the skin that is next to the lesions? It could be DH. If they biopsy the lesion itself it will be a false negative. I just looked at a bunch of pictures of pompholyx on the net and many of them looked just like my DH.

Many derms are clueless about DH, mine was diagnosed first as 'poison ivy in my blood' then as atopic dermatitis, then as 'pickers acne'.

I had DH for about 25 years before any gut symptoms showed up as more than an off and on annoyance.

If he does have DH that is a diagnosis of celiac. No more testing would be needed.