Sudden rash in skin fold areas

I am allergic to many, many things - one result of which is itching ears.  I didn't realize itching ears could be caused by allergies and kept getting ear infections, finally resulting in impetigo in my ears for which I got Keflex from the doctor.  

Seven days later I realized I was scratching like crazy and looked in a mirror - there were tiny red bumps, like chigger bites.  Very rapidly these coalesced into a widening, thick, wildly itchy, bright red rash.  Several days later I saw the ear doctor, he said put hydrocortisone on it.  I said I need a dermatologist, this is not normal and it's getting worse.  Perspiring was a hell in itself.  Took four days to get a dermatologist appointment.  He said poison ivy, based on a newly appearing poison-ivy-type rash on my arms and legs and prescribed fluocinonide and Benedryl.  I couldn't think of any possible exposure to poison ivy.  The thickness of the hives went down, but the inflammed skin all instantly died.  It continued to spread and itch.  (I washed everything I had touched and scrubbed my whole body with detergent three times to ward off any spreading of the supposed urishol exposure.)  

Three days later (Saturday) and much, much worse (now feeling really ill, weak, sick, itching out of my mind even with 50mg Benedryl four times a day) I called Duke University Medical Center and was able to speak with the dermatologist-on-call (resident).  She said the best she could do was try to get me an appointment in the Dermatology Clinic the following week.  Couldn't sleep nights and went online, finding a medical paper that EXACTLY matched what I was going through - it said drug reaction picturesquely called "baboon syndrome".  http://dermatology.cdlib.org/93/original/baboon/wolf.html  By now I had taken the last Keflex.  Waited half-way through Monday and, feeling barely able to drive, drove the hour to Duke ER - they triaged me, two doctors looked at my paper/research and said "It could be a drug reaction but it looks like a fungal infection - wait in the waiting room until we have an ER pod available."  After waiting eight hours, ready to fall over, I checked out and drove home - I knew I could not sit up all night in the waiting room.  

The next day I got a call telling me that the resident I spoke to Saturday had asked for an appointment for me and that there was a cancellation if I could get there immediately.  Dragged myself to the car and drove the hour.  Three dermatologists in the Duke Dermatology Acute Care Clinic gasped, each in turn, at the extent and condition of my rash (before it quit spreading so wildly it was in all the flexural areas of my waist, thighs, all the way down between my buttucks and all the way back up and around - nothing was spared, right side of my neck, and left elbow - I bruise easily and was also now a bruised mess from scratching I could not resist).  They each read my medical abstract, and said the same thing the ER doctors had said.  

I got so upset at the idea of no treatment that I started crying hard and proceeded into a full-blown nervous breakdown (not my first, sad to say).  It gets worse, including that most of the sick and weak part, plus the nervous breakdown, were due to being intolerant of the Benedryl, and rebound headache as I went through withdrawal from the Benedryl (won't take that again), but I'll skip the really horrible part.  The Attending took a biopsy and three days later I got a call that it WAS a drug reaction, probably to the Keflex (which I'd taken a number of times in the past without incident) and I was prescribed Triamcinilone Acetonide 0.1% ointment - the dermatologist told me that it could take up to six weeks to clear, and that it might continue to spread the whole time (it has).  Wherever it spreads it itchs like mad.  

As the skin began to heal there was a lot of sloughing (where the fluocinonide killed the inflammed skin) and it looked everywhere like I had been severely burned.  Meanwhile, the poison-ivy-like outbreaks (exactly in the locations of genuine previous exposure to a contact dermatitis source - old (even relatively recent) exposure to poison ivy did not erupt, only areas affected by one exposure that occurred near Jacksonville, Florida, next to a swamp 44 years ago and my research suggests it was poison sumac) that are a symptom of this drug-reaction got uglier and uglier - expanding, ulcerated lesions that itched horribly and continued to spread (at no time was there any weeping or crusting, as seen on actual urishol exposure).  Finally, I got desperate enough to work on a hunch and started to treat this part of the skin eruption as though it actually were poison ivy, using the fluocinonide ointment instead of the triamcinolone acetonide ointment just on those parts - they immediately started to dry up (though they still itch) and heal.  

It's been almost three weeks since the beginning of the triamcinolone acetonide ointment.  There is a dark stain everywhere the intertriginous rash was, and if I eat any of the foods I am allergic/intolerant to the rash starts to flare up in a new location (currently the front of my ankles), but I'm so much better.  

Seven doctors saw that rash, including four dermatologists.  None of them recognized it for what it was - most thought it was a fungal infection.  None of the dermatologists had ever heard of flare-up of old contact dermatitis lesions as a symptom of a drug reaction.  

I couldn't (and cannot yet) bear the proximity of polyester to my skin during all this, though I routinely wore polyester previously.  The only fabric I have in my possesion that I can bear is cotton and rayon.  I showered every night and changed my bed linens almost daily, despite being unable to sleep for itching all this time, but the secondary contact-dermatitis-like lesions were always badly inflammed until I started treating them with the fluocinonide and they had nearly healed (there are still some inflammed lesions, but they're healing fast now).  The intertriginous areas look so much better, but let me eat something I don't tolerate well and they itch immediately, even without the inflammed rash, even though they're almost healed.  

Furthermore, I can't take ANY of the medications I usually use - Naproxen for arthritis, acetominophen with codeine for severe fibromyalgia pain, Singulair for my many allergies (many confirmed by skin test - on the intial skin ***** challenge I hit on 30 out of 36) without intolerable rebound symptoms - lightheadedness, backache, headache, total lethargy/weakness to the point of laying flat out with my mouth hanging uncontrollably open (yet unable to sleep).  Xanax, the only thing I dare to take and that only at night and only because I am exhausted and desperately in need of sleep (I have continuing insomnia, there was no sleeping while the rash was itching and burning - I couldn't even put a cotton cover over me), now helps me to sleep a little but lingers very noticably until late the next morning.  

What's my point?  If you get a sudden intertriginous (flexable, foldable skin areas) rash (with or without an accompanying rash that looks just like poison ivy (contact dermatitis), scream "DRUG REACTION" to anyone who will listen.  Maybe you'll get help sooner than I did.  Better yet, if you get this, STOP TAKING whatever drug you have just begun taking and see your doctor with a copy of the above medical abstract immediately.