Tinea Versicolor Archives

Ped says tinea versacolor, but spots are purple

My daughter who is 4 awakened 9 days ago w/ light purple spots on her back from the nape of her neck to the waist. They range in size from pencil eraser to dime & are present in clusters. They seem very bruise like & seem to be beneath the skin.

On Thurs they were so faint they could barely be seen. Friday they were darker & were very dark yesterday. Yesterday a few showed up on her chest & belly. This morning a few on the back of each upper arm. (She says she does not itch or hurt.)

Her ped saw her today & said this is tinea versacolor, will go away on its own in less than 6months & to just leave it alone. (From what I've already read, the spot color isn't right, & it doesn't go away!)

What about Thrombocytopenic Purpura? She had a viral infection 3 weeks ago that resulted in treatment w/ an antibiotic.

Thanks for your opinions & any advice.
Stacey

Follow Ups:

• Re: Ped says tinea versacolor, but spots are purple (SIGH!) Archive. Walt Stoll [9.1465] 09:01:46 1/04/05 (0)
• Re: Ped says tinea versacolor, but spots are purple Tammy [811.1351] 08:38:19 1/04/05 (0)

In Reply to: Ped says tinea versacolor, but spots are purple posted by Stacey [6.6] on January 03, 2005 at 17:37:21:

Hi Stacey,

My14 year old son had this too 2 years ago. Just one day woke up with what I thought was a rash, and spread everywhere except the soles of his feet and palms of his hands. Fortunatly, his face was not affected that badly, only a few spots on his chin. He saw 3 dermotologists, and had a punch biopsy done. Nothing came back. They did however find that his phosphatase titers came back high which is normal in a growing child (growing bones release this) and his antistreptolycine? titers came back positive for strep, 2 tests in a row. Could she have had a strep infection? He was fine, no itch or anything. Little purple spots...(if you search my post 2 years ago you'll see I was extremely concerned as well). To this day you can still see them in the winter when he pales, (not very noticable though) but disappear when he tans. The only other thing the doc said was mastocytosis..but all blood work and biopsy showed nothing.
That said though...I would get some bloodwork done see if anything shows up. Good Luck...it is still a mystery to me. If anything does show up (I hope not) please let us know.
Tammy

In Reply to: Ped says tinea versacolor, but spots are purple posted by Stacey [6.6] on January 03, 2005 at 17:37:21:

Stacy,

This is pitiriasis (look it up in a good, color dermatology atlas) until proven otherwise. This is a viral infection of the skin that is innocuous and self-limited to about 6 weeks. What kind of doc are you taking her to who treats viral infections with an antibiotic????????????!

This doc is really confused about the difference between tinea versicolor and pitiriasis versicolor.

If this were MY child, I would be seeking a better doc. This mistaken diagnosis, and poor choices of treatment, along with inaccurate description of prognosis, says to me that I would be grateful that this was not something more serious. I doubt that he would be any better at something more serious than he was with this.

Let us know what you learn and do not worry. Nothing you do will make any diference and NOTHING needs to be done.

Walt