14 DAY TRIAL // Reddit user scumtarty discovered his skin swells when he lightly scratches it, and instead of going to a doctor to see what's wrong with him, he decided to ask for advice from a less competent party: Reddit's users community.
I guess he just wanted to avoid all the hassle of making an appointment to a dermatologist, so he captured a video of him scratching his arm with a pencil to read the word “Reddit” when it swelled and posted it on the social networking site, asking fellow users to identify his unknown condition.
“My skin swells where I scratch it. Here is a time lapse of my arm swelling to spell the word REDDIT,” scumtarty wrote in an April 28 post, the Daily Dot informs.
“If anyone could tell me why my skin does this, I am interested. I haven't met anyone else who has skin that does this,” he added in the video's description.
Apparently, his skin is very sensitive and it takes about 15 minutes to swell. The itchy rash on the skin lasts anywhere from 2 to 3 hours.
Surprisingly, the Reddit community, which seems to include experts from all fields, came to his rescue and managed to diagnose his rare skin condition. They say his disease is called dermatographia urticaria and is one of the most common types of urticaria, also known as “skin writing.”
“It's basically a just histamine reaction to physical irritation. No major downsides except that you can get into an annoying feedback loop... Something itches, so you scratch it. But the scratching causes a histamine reaction and causes more itching. My wife has great fun drawing pictures on my back with it,” one user wrote.
Actually, it's highly possible that they are correct.
According to Wikipedia, dermatographic urticaria is a skin disorder seen in 4%–5% of the world’s population and it means that the skin becomes raised and inflamed when stroked, scratched, or rubbed. It is most common in teenagers and young adults, ages 15-30.
We reported about a similar case last month, when we presented Sarah Beal's story. The 43-year-old woman from Arley, Warwickshire, suffers from the same condition that causes her skin to swell even at the slightest scratch.
Both the teenager and Sarah seem to find their condition rather entertaining, as they enjoy drawing different patterns on their skin and then just watch them vanish. Basically, they can use their own body as an Etch A Sketch toy.
