The Skin Virus That Kept Coming Back

My teen years were not easy. I was besieged with one health issue upon the next. By the time I hit the high school years, my skin, joints, and digestive system were spiraling out of control.

The story I’m about to share is about a skin virus that kept coming back. I was told this particular virus is supposed to be one and done. I hope my sharing this will inspire you as a patient or a parent to push for answers when skin issues do not add up.

It all started when...

Being diagnosed with Epstein Barr Syndrome

The year I turned 12, I was hit with a nasty case of chickenpox. We were baffled that it happened since I had a mild case as a kid. Never an underachiever, I was also diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection.

A few months later I was hit with a virus called Epstein Barr Syndrome (EBS). After recovering from EBS, my health continued to take weird twists and turns. By the time I hit high school, it was a constant battle to manage my digestive system issues.

It was also during those formative years that I was dealing with scalp dryness along with other skin issues. I’ve written about how my flaky scalp impacted those years and how I learned that it was actually sebopsoriasis.

Is it really Epstein Barr Syndrome?

About a year after the EBS situation occurred, my back ached and itched. My skin from arms to shoulders and down my back never felt the same after the chickenpox. It always felt more sensitive.

I chalked it up to something I would have to deal with forever and that’s just my luck. But one day it felt different in a bad way. My skin felt prickly from the inside out. I noticed some marks on my sides but could feel bumps on my back. Clothing wasn’t comfortable either. Off to the doctor, we went.

He took a look and told my mother it was again, a virus that would resolve in six-to-ten weeks and never come back. Then, he prescribed sunbathing to help my skin.

The constant companion

So, yet again I was taken out of school rotation with a prescription to sunbathe. My friends in the neighborhood whined to their parents, "Why can’t we get prescriptions to stay home and sit in the sun?"

I wasn’t laughing though, because it came back time and time again. This “virus” which was supposed to be a one and done, became a constant companion over my high school years. In a way, I was glad that I couldn’t see the round red plaques.

Without seeing them easily, I wasn’t able to fixate on their appearance. I was grateful the “virus” didn’t affect me during the summer months. In those months, I was out in the sun a few hours a day at the least if not more.

Symptoms of psoriasis

The first time a plaque appeared away from my torso, my mom and I both thought I must have scraped myself up shaving. I’m a klutz, we both wrote it off. But these were not normal nicks from a razor. One was a long scabby mess extending out down from one armpit. It looked like a trail of raised scabbed circles. Another scabby mess was on my knee.

Yes, I know now these were plaques. I get them from time to time. Yes, even while being on a biologic. Thankfully they don’t stick around for long and respond with some extra care.

A proper psoriasis diagnosis

It’s not that I had a bad doctor who made many mistakes. He ignored my parents’ pleas to investigate Crohn’s disease and said it was severe IBS and that I didn’t fit the profile for Crohn’s. It’s more like in the early 90s there wasn’t easy access for information sharing the way we have now.

Your symptoms had to fit in a box. How unfortunate, right? I’m not a fan of symptoms in a box. I never fit into a single box and have paid the price time and time again. Upon further reflection, I don’t know many who do fit in a box.

Am I annoyed that I believed in this virus that wasn't really a virus? Yep! Receiving the psoriasis diagnosis was freeing, in a way. I finally had answers for things that once didn’t make sense. Have you had a doctor dismiss your psoriasis as something else? How did you handle it?