Introduction
If the skin itches and red spots appear, there can be several causes. For the patient this is usually very unpleasant and in serious cases it can even cause the skin to itch bloody or the patient can no longer devote himself to other tasks because the itching becomes so dominant. It is therefore important to alleviate the symptoms as well and as quickly as possible.
Associated symptoms
In addition to itchy skin and red spots, there are usually accompanying symptoms or the red spots only appear at certain times or have a certain shape. All these symptoms, which may seem unimportant at first, are extremely important for a differential diagnosis and should therefore be considered. In the case of neurodermatitis, in addition to the red spots and itchy skin, there is also extremely dry skin, which usually flakes.
The red spots are very broad and diffuse and merge into each other. Otherwise, the patient usually has no symptoms. Neurodermatitis usually occurs in the area of the elbow or the knee bend and usually gets worse in stressful situations.
In the case of an allergy, only after contact with the allergen does an itchy skin with red spots suddenly appear, usually accompanied by pustules or wheals. For example, if a patient has worn a nickel bracelet, the allergic rash only occurs in this area, but not further distributed. Infection with measles usually occurs in childhood, although the vaccination reduces the number of measles cases.
If a child is nevertheless infected with measles, red spots appear on the skin, but these usually only itch slightly. In addition, before the red spots appear on the skin, there is sore throat due to an inflammation of the bronchial tubes (bronchitis) and characteristic red spots appear on the inside of the cheek mucous membrane (headlick spots). Cold and coughing also usually occur in patients.
Afterwards the patient feels better for a short period of time, but then the red spots on the skin appear, which are usually associated with high fever. Ringed rubella, as the name suggests, is a rash with red spots, which leaves interesting curled patterns on the skin. The disease is caused by the parvovirus B19 and is asymptomatic in most children.
However, some children may develop the classic rubella. The red spots usually form on the cheek. The skin can itch slightly, although this is a rather unspecific sign of rubella.
The rash can then spread over the entire body. Other symptoms are rather untypical and are rarely observed. With rubella, on the other hand, there are small spots all over the body, in addition, there is also fever and aching limbs.
Lymph node swelling and slight coughing with mucous sputum can also occur. In the hand-foot-mouth disease, as the name suggests, red spots and slightly itchy skin on the hand, foot and mouth occur. Chickenpox, on the other hand, is accompanied by fever and headache and aching limbs.
Furthermore, there is also very itchy skin covered with red spots. Chickenpox is called starry sky, because some blisters are already crusted when other blisters are still full and red. This results in a very colorful picture.
In the adult form of chickenpox, shingles, itchy and painful skin and red spots appear, which are restricted to a dermatome along a rib. In fungal infections, the red spots are rather diffuse and the skin itches where the red spots appear. In some cases, an allergic reaction to a medication can also lead to itchy skin and diffuse red spots. In this case it is important to consider the temporal context and also to inform the doctor exactly if a medication has been taken recently or has been started anew.
