What is this rash on me?

What on earth is this rash?

• What the hell is this rash? SFW but eye-glazingly detailed info inside. My three-year-old daughter and I recently returned from a trip to the Traverse City, MI area, where we spent a lot of time running around outside and even more time hanging out in a freshwater lake. The lake did have swimmer's itch, which we all got some of in moderation. The day before we left, I noticed my daughter had a pindot rash on the backs of her knees, which I attributed to chafing from her swimsuit. (She has a long-sleeved down-to-her-knees high-SPF swimsuit.) But when I put some lotion on it to ease the irritation, she began to SCREAM, and continued to do so until I iced it out of desperation. The rash faded down after about 20 minutes. The next day, due to weather and connection silly buggers, I had to sprint across the Minneapolis airport. After we were safely on our connection, I visited the airplane bathroom where I noticed some dry, rough skin on the insides and tops of my thighs. I figured it was chafing from the rough sprint; I'm not in great shape, plus I'm six months pregnant, so it was not exactly an elegant run if you get my meaning. I sort of rubbed it down and went back to my seat, but went back to the bathroom when I felt it start to prickle. Lo and behold, the same pindot rash appeared. I dug out some lotion and put it on, and it almost immediately began to sting and burn incredibly seriously. It felt like a jellyfish sting or a nettle rash, no lie. I hopped about and swore and went back to my seat and did some deep breathing and tried to focus on something else, and after about 20 minutes, the pain faded. That was Wednesday. It's now Sunday. Anywhere on my or my daughter's body this rough dry skin appears, friction will raise the pindots. Lotion or cream (no matter what kind; we've used cortisone, fancy stuff from Lush, and lanacaine) causes the stinging, once; repeated friction will re-raise the pindots, but the same area of skin won't repeat the stinging. There's one place on my daughter's leg where she frantically rubbed at the rash "to try and get the owie dots off" where they're now there all the time, but if you don't do that, they fade. The rash is on my daughter's legs, hip to ankle, and her upper chest and neck; it's on my thighs and forearms. Neither of us has any fever, joint pain, appetite disruption, abdominal pain, or malaise. The rash doesn't form any kind of pattern, it's flat, and it doesn't itch at all. It's not purpuritic, there are no blisters or whiteheads, and there's no drainage or fluid. Nobody else who was with us on the trip -- close to forty extended family members were up there -- got anything like this. I called our nurse line, and they were all ". . . well that's different" and told me to go to the doc first thing tomorrow on account of being pregnant, but they had no ideas of what it was. I will, of course, be following their advice, but have any of you lovely people ever experienced or heard of anything like this?

• Answer:

  i have used the internets to identify bugs http://www.whatsthatbug.com/ and birds http://www.whatbird.com so i figure there had to be one for rashes. there are a bunch: http://www.google.com/search?q=identify+a+rash&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a but sorry, too close to bedtime to look at any of the info on them :-)