Allergic contact dermatitis

 I wrote this post--using an iPad--on September 2 while evacuated to a cabin at Huntington Lake in the California Sierra Mountains. September 2 was day 17 of our evacuation from our home in Boulder Creek, California, site of the CZU Lightning Complex fire. I'm editing this at home on September 7th. Huntington Lake is now the site of a wildfire. We left the day before it started.

While at the cabin, I read an interesting medical-related story and wrote this: A man was doing yard work when he felt a sting on his shin—an insect bite, he figured. He did see a puncture mark. A couple of days later, the spot had become a little red, so his wife suggested that he put Neosporin on it, which he did.

He also decided to see a doctor about it. After examining him, the doctor decided that the spot--which had become enlarged and darker red--was not infected. Nevertheless, she prescribed an antibiotic for him to take in the event that the red area became larger.

In the days that followed, the area did become larger and the man started the antibiotics—to no effect. In fact, the red area continued to enlarge until it was about the size of a hockey puck and was surrounded by red dots. Not only that, but a red area also appeared on his other leg at about the same location. Again, he sought medical help. This time several doctors examined him and ruled out Lyme disease, brown recluse spider bite, and several other possibilities. Finally, one of the doctors figured it out: he was allergic to Neosporin. 

Neosporin is a triple antibiotic ointment, which his skin mistook for an invader, triggering an inflammatory response: allergic contact dermatitis. It turns out that triple antibiotic ointments are among the top ten causes of allergic contact dermatitis, along with some of the common ingredients in lotions and fragrances. As to the fact that the man’s other leg developed the redness, it was because it had come into contact with the ointment on the affected leg.

Update: we learned, on 9/11, that the cabin burned, a casualty of the Camp fire.

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