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tiny itchy blisters on arms & legs

Shamefully, for almost 8 years I have been getting very small itchy blisters on various spots on my arms and legs.  The small blisters develop and immediately itch intensely, which is how I know they're there.  They have a clear fluid inside, with no puss.  When I scratch them in my sleep or when they break, they often weep a little  amber colored liquid.  Also, when I scratch them, more tiny blisters will develop around the original blister, signifying an infection.  These broken blisters often leave  (little open sores) which can be difficult and slow to heal.  These outbreaks seem to come in waves, as I'll often go weeks or even a month or two without a sign of blisters, itching, or infection.  I have never had any white puss or swelling redness around these troublesome blisters/vesicles, which isn't like any normal skin infection I've ever had before.  Can anyone help me diagnosis this problem please?
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Avatar universal
Ok so its a month after my original post.  Since then I have been out in super sunny conditions 3 times.  The first 2 times I genorously and repeatedly applied lots of SPF 30 sunscreen.  Conveniently enough, I had no itchy breakouts.  Then this past weekend I was at a fair of sorts and I was out in the sun from 11am to 4pm.  I applied sunscreen once and then didnt reapply because I was stupid (and mildy inebriated).  Well that was Saturday, then on Tuesday my hands felt a little itchy, Then on Wednesday My hands felt more itchy, but still no bumps.  Now today, Thursday morning, I have the itchy bumps begining to form.  So its settled, If I go out in the sun and apply tons of sunscreen repeatedly, im ok and I dont break out.  If I go out in the strong sun and I dont properly protect my skin, I get a breakout of itchy bump things on my hand.

If anyone else has found this correlation, please post something and let me know Im not loosing my mind.  To me my experience sounds like a well tested experiment resulting in a direct cause and effect.  But does anyone get these bumps but they are never in direct sunlight?
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Avatar universal
Well by the looks of all these statements there's something else going on...How can so many people from all walks of life have the same itchy problem....They say a plague will kill off the human race!!!Maybe it's starting.......
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Avatar universal
If you all read this article, i bet we could all find a food or something common among us that may be the cause of all our woes......just a thought.
http://todayhealth.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/27/11834403-9-nastiest-things-in-your-supermarket?lite&ocid=todmsnbc11
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Avatar universal
Hei fellow sufferers!
Have the same stuff going on here-havent slept for 4days now because of the itch and the uncomfortable situation:( But listen everybody I think I found a solution for my problem-at least it has helped me to not scratch myself for almost 5 hours now-will see what the night brings:)-Ok, so I took 2 Claritine tablets, a really long soap(cleaniq face) shower(cold) and Im spraying my blisters with nothing other then Cutasept feet-I know Your all like-wth, but belive me Im so desperet that I needed to try everything to get rid of this awful itch! Hope it will help you too! O and one more thing- Im not 100% but I think Its some kind of herpes, cause it spreads like a virus, so maybe u guys need to let it checked out, I know I will fur sure! Best of luck to everybody!
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Avatar universal
I am a 29 year old white male.    I have tiny skin colored bumps, some are filled with a clear liquid.  When I “pop” them with a nail clipper it oozes out clear.  I can flatten it and remove all the ooze, but 2-3 minutes later it refills to normal unflattened size.  The dried up ones itch less than the newly forming ones which itch like crazy and I am using all of my willpower to not itch them.  If I itch them and they burst, they hurt, dry up and crust over, though sometimes they just reestablish themselves.  I just know that when I scratch them it takes them longer to heal.  But the compromise is don’t scratch the intensely itchy spots on my hands for 4-5 days while they dry up and become a weird yellow color, and stay stiff until they flake off or scratch them and have them crust up and be painful but not itch, and then of course have scarring.

Ive tried several doctors and dermatologists and they are all useless.  I say this as I have my own degrees in chemistry and biology so I know how to research something and they constantly just write me off as “oh its eczema, oh its contact dermatitis, oh its poison ivy, oh its nothing… here is a cream” and then the cream helps a little but the problem always comes back.  I google until my eyes hurt from reading and find thousands of people have this same problem and no one knows what it is, what causes it, or how to cure it.  I even went so far as researching medical journals on pubmed but I could find no one actively studying this phenomena that we have.  That means very few people know what this stuff is and no one wants to do research on it or no one wants to fund research on it, so we the public are on our own for now.  Probably for many many decades as that’s how long drugs take to go through clinical trials.

So anyway, the first instance that I had of these clear tiny itchy bubbles was when I was 26, about 3 days after I used a tanning bed for the first time in my life.  Future trips to the tanning salon were followed with more of these bumps.  2 months after I last used a tanning bed this stuff went away.  I have tried to make correlations to sunlight and heat but until recently I was unable to link it.  Now it seems to me that after I am exposed to strong sunlight (or a tanning bed) it will take 2-3 days for these little bumps to show up.  They only show up on my hands, mostly on my fingertips, some on the back of my hands, once actually on a small dime sized patch on my penis, but thank god that only lasted about a week thanks to spraying it with that tinactin powder (makes me wonder why I never bothered spraying my hands with the same powder).  Well I noticed that the spot on my penis correlated perfectly with a spot on my finger where I hold the thing while I pee.  Until that ‘a-hah’ moment I did not believe that it could spread by scratching.  But I never had it on my junk before and the spot lined up perfectly with my finger.  So Im just saying, be careful.  Maybe other people cant catch it from you, but it seems that you may be able to transfer it to different parts of your body.

About 2 months back I went on a 7 day Caribbean cruise and during the last days of the cruise, after I was exposed to several days of Caribbean sunshine, these itchy bubbles showed up.  3 miserable weeks later the last of it crusted over and I was fine.  Then this past Saturday I went to an air show in NJ where I was outside on a sunny 75 degree day from 10am til 4pm, no umbrella, no hat, no common sense.  I applied SPF15 sunscreen once an hour and after getting home, I only had the slightest sunburn across half of my neck while my GF had various splotches of sunburn (so Im saying I applied lotsa sunscreen).  Well, like clockwork 2 days later my hands felt itchy and on day 3 these bumps showed up.  3 days later the original bumps stopped itching and were starting to dry and crust, then another batch of bumps showed up in random places all over my hands; some in patches/clusters, others as lone bumps.

What I am trying to get at is that, at least in my case, these breakouts are directly proportional to sun exposure.  I found in the past that when I used a tanning bed for just 3 minutes (a year after my first outbreak) that if I applied sunscreen generously to my hands, I would have no breakouts.  Then, being the scientist I am, I just had to test my theory, so the next time in the tanning bed (that would be the 4th time for the season over the course of 14 days) I didnt put sunscreen on my hands.  Lo and behold my hands broke out in these blistery things not 2 days later.

So I dont know if its gluten related or nickel related or stress related or whatever, but for me, strong sun exposure causes it (or artificial sun ie tanning bed).  I have definitely not been stressed for the past 2 weeks (its been quite nice actually) but I did sit in the sun during that air show and there seems to be quite the correlation.  I will continue using myself as a guinea pig and heavily spraying sunscreen (and reapplying it) during my average 4 hour golf outings from 10am to 2pm on sunny Saturday or Sunday afternoons.  I figure if I can go for a whole month or 2 without a breakout, I'll try one day with no sunscreen and see if it does break out, then I can confirm it.  My breakouts only occur between April and October, the sunniest times of the year so yeah.  Except my cruise was in March, but you get the picture.

I also found that heat does make it worse, so during a breakout I have to take luke warm showers and sleep in cold conditions (or else the itching is so bad I cannot sleep).  I cant say whether high temperature causes it or not, but heat makes it worse for me once I already have it.  Cortisone creams help with the itch but it doesnt last and they are very greasy, at least the one I have is.  Moisturizer seems to help at first, but then it just feels even more itchy like 10 minutes later.  I hope this tome helps some of you.  If I figure anything else out I will repost.
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Avatar universal
If you have Heat Rash it can be a serious problem if allowed to develop into a more serious condition, anybody with these symptoms needs to do their own research. I'm not sure if standing in front of a fan for a few hours makes it go away, but I've noticed that I often get these blisters on the side of my pointer finger from where I hold my thumb in my hand's resting position. My thumb rests on the side of my finger, and then after a few hours I get these blisters there. if i leave them alone they go away after a day or so, so just don't go overboard.
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