Facial swelling, bumps on arm, hives

[nannan]

I went scuba diving (discover scuba) in Puerto Rico on 7/25/13 and noticed after a couple of hours that I had some bumps on my arm that looked like pimples. I continued sightseeing afterwards and petted a few of the stray cats around Old San Juan. I woke up the next morning with swollen neck, cheeks and around my eyes. I didn't have any difficulty breathing. I also saw that each hair follicle on the backs of my arms and legs was red and irritated and white hives connected them. The bumps on my forearm had turned into hives. I saw a doctor at Presbyterian Hospital in Condado but by then the swelling and hives had gone down. She didn't speak much English and basically told me to take a Benedryl and get lost. The next day, I woke up with the same symptoms.

It's been nine days now. The hives/redness of hair follicles all over my body are gone but the area on my forearm has remained red. This morning I woke up and the area wasn't red but back to the original raised bumps. Tonight around 8 PM they suddenly became VERY itchy (they didn't itch before!) My thigh was also itchy and I noticed for the first time that I had the same issue there. My neck also felt swollen. The itchiness has passed now.

Any suggestions on what this is and what to do next? I'm going to try to go to a doctor with weekend hours tomorrow. I think a dermatologist would be good but it's so hard to get appointments with them in NYC. I will be moving out of the USA in three weeks and need to get this figured out.

The night of the day I dived


The next morning


Today (It looks worse now because I scratched it)

 

[Jim Lapenta]

What were you wearing? Did it fully cover your arms and legs. Did you come into contact with any part of the reef? Were any types of jelly fish sighted or encountered? It sounds and looks like an allergic reaction of some type but more info is required.

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[chillyinCanada]

could be a staph infection. heaven only knows where you encountered it.

 

[Doubler]

I get the same thing when I take Aleve so it might have nothing to do with diving. Could have been the stray cats. 9 days is a bit long to wait to see a doctor. You need to get this taken care of, I know I wouldn't be real happy to be sitting next to someone on a plane who's arms were covered in hives, on some airlines you could be escorted off.

 

[TSandM]

Hives aren't contagious, and are rarely associated with anything that is.

If in fact you have true hives -- pink, raised wheals that are intensely itchy -- that's an immune response to something. What it's from can be difficult to determine, and in a great many cases, we never figure it out. Unfortunately, the photos you posted are tiny, which makes it difficult to make out details.

I think visiting a physician is reasonable. Someone who can actually take a full history and do a good examination of your skin AND the rest of you will be able to figure things out much better than anyone on line can.

 

[Doubler]

There are a LOT of things that look like Hives and are contagious!

 

[TSandM]

Do you have an example, Doubler? Classic hives are difficult to mistake for anything else, or at least that's my uninformed opinion as an ER doc. A dermatologist might differ.

 

[uncfnp]

There are a LOT of things that look like Hives and are contagious!

Urticaria or hives are a manifestation of an immune reaction and can on occasion be associated with infections but hives themselves are not contagious and as TSandM said, have such a characteristic presentation that it would be difficult for any knowledgable person to mistake.

 

[nannan]

I went to another doctor today in NYC. The whole appointment took five minutes and he gave me a prescription for hydrocortisone after declaring it was an allergic reaction. Do allergic reactions last nine days? I'm now down $60 in copays to see these people... I'm going to call a bunch of dermatologists starting Monday to try to squeeze into their schedules in time before I leave.

I wasn't wearing a wetsuit, only my bathing suit. My arm did make contact with the sandy ocean floor and there might have been bits of coral in the sand but my thigh definitely didn't touch that part. I didn't see any jellyfish. I did pick up some sort of creature after the instructor did... It was a hard tube thing. I wore a long sleeved shirt on the plane.

Here's what it looks like today- raised red bumps. They're only itchy if something brushes against them. I also just discovered a few bumps around my elbow as well as the ones on my thigh.