Itchy rash

My rheumie prescribes betamethazone steroid cream for the rash & I use calomine lotion and take benedryl.  (that's after I go screaming into a hot shower btw-lol-I know your pain)...severe itching is HORRIBLE!  I now use noxemia helioplex for sunscreen, and to be perfectly honest, I stay out of the sun as much as possible!  I'm extremely photosensitive & get horrid itchy rashes.  The plaquenil gold standard takes a few months to start working-and it will help minimize your symptoms but not take them away completely.  There are more lupus meds you can add to that to help treat the underlying disease-LUPUS- like disease modifying drugs (like Imuran, Cellcept, more) and Benlysta (biological) or methotrexate.  You have options.    So I'd suggest asking your rheumatologist about them.  You can also ask for a prescribed strong antihistamine as they help the itching too.

Good luck!     JJ

E45 Itch Cream is good..also Tesco do a good cream that worked on ezcema called Aqueous Cream in a large white pot......hope this helps it must be awful to be constantly itching....best wishes....

Hi. I had the same. Same as what other people have said, try an antihistamine just before you go to bed and you can take another through the day. I started on basic loratidine and cetirizine, when it got really bad they gave me atarax from the GP. They then sent me for a patch test to see what I am allergic to, if the rash is ruining your life, that would be the next option really. Sometimes you can react to not the ingredient of the cream / ointment itself, but to whatever the "carrier" is. That is the stuff they put the active ingredient in. I didn't find any of the steroid creams they gave me evey effective. But I found Dermol (just an emoillient) very helpful as it stopped my skin from drying, which made it worse. Do try looking at your diet though, processed food and things high in salt made me worse, so cut down on them. My rashes now only come up when I am having a flare, which thankfully is only two or three times a year, and can be managed with surprisingly enough loratidine twice a day and cheap shea based body butter from Tesco! Saves a lot of money and trips to the GP as loratidine is cheap as chips and body butter less than £5. Good luck with you, hopefully you will find whichever cream helps you best, it took me three years of trial and error. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Honestly. you really should stay out of the sun, my lupus flares up even though I love feeling the warmth, it is really not worth it.