It was July 2005 that I experienced the ultimate skin attack.  Pityriasis Rosea would later be the formal diagnosis, but at the time, I hadn’t a clue as to what was happening to me.  I had all of the common symptoms: One large, scaly herald patch on my stomach, a pattern of what seemed like tons of round spots all over the rest of my torso (also on my arms and thighs), and excruciating itching to top it all off.  I had the works.  It was a nightmare!

Of course the symptoms I was having were just the physical side of things.  What about my emotional and psychological symptoms?  I felt like I was loosing my mind…literally!  I was scared.  I was confused.  To make it plain, I was freaking out!  I couldn’t understand what was happening to me.

A rational person would probably think the obvious: Go to the doctor and find out what’s going on.  Right?  Actually, I did the opposite.  Looking back, I was being stupid, but at the time not knowing felt more assuring.  So, week after week went by and the little round spots on my body spread like wildfire.  I was covered with them to the point of unbearable agony.  But somewhere in my mind I felt like I couldn’t share this health nightmare with anyone else.  Daily I flipped back and forth between the bizarre and the logical.  What if I’ve caught some sort of infection, some nasty fungus, or incurable virus?  What if it’s just eczema (which was known to run in my family)?  What if these spots never go away?  What if this outbreak is some horrible, deathly disease that ends up eating my entire body from the inside out?  Sounds funny, huh?  But as melodramatic as it sounds, it was seriously how I felt.

So what would I do?  Well I finally broke down and showed my mother and my sister.  They both gasped with concern.  And I felt like a freak.  Right away they hit me with an overload of questions:  How long have you had these spots?  Do they hurt?  How do you feel?  Does your skin itch?  Why didn’t you tell us?  Did you go to the doctor?  I was bombarded with a lecture from them both and an insistent demand to get to the doctor’s office immediately. 

So I called the doctor and was able to get an appointment fairly quick.  Though anxious and nervous as to what the doctor would find, I also felt a sense of relief to finally know exactly what was going on with me.

The appointment arrives and there I am in the examination room.  I’m stripped down to one of those “gorgeous gowns” and my nerves are shot.  The doctor asks me a few basic questions and then proceeds to examine my spots.  As I looked at the doctor during the examination, I noticed a confused look on her face.  Though her confusion triggered an instant loss of faith in her expertise, still I preceded to ask her the questions that just wouldn’t leave my mind.  Is this a bacterial infection?  Do you think this is some sort of allergic reaction?  Is it eczema or psoriasis?  I could tell by her slow response that she didn’t quite know the answers to my questions.  Still, I waited for a prognosis.

She proceeds to ask me additional questions.  Then, finally, she tells me that she has no clue as to what it is that I have.  Geez, thanks!  How ridiculous was that visit?  I could go into a written rampage of all the thoughts and feelings that I was having at the moment, but I won’t for time’s sake.

Eventually I was finally referred to an actual dermatologist.  Now I was getting somewhere.  She diagnosed me right away and said it was Pityriasis Rosea.  Next I was handed a sheet detailing my condition.  1.) There is no known cause for it.  2.) The symptoms could last as long as 3-4 weeks or EVEN MONTHS!  3.) There is no treatment for it.