Blistering eruption following a rubefacient rub for shoulder discomfort.

Annals Academy of Medicine Dear Editor, A 96-year-old woman was referred as an emergency with a suspected allergic reaction to Deep Heat® rub (Mentholatum Company Ltd, East Kilbride, Scotland). Five days before referral, she developed pain and stiffness of her left neck and shoulder. Because of this discomfort, assumed to be muscular, she started applying an over-the-counter rubefacient,1 called Deep Heat® rub (active constituents: menthol, eucalyptus oil, methyl salicylate, turpentine oil), and 2 days later, she felt a different painful burning sensation. This was associated with the appearance of confl uent redness and swelling, with multiple small blisters, over the treated area. At her general practice surgery, she was treated with silver sulfadiazine (Flamazine®, Smith & Nephew, Hull, UK) cream and Mepilex® (Mölnlycke Health Care, Sweden) dressings but her blistering eruption continued to get worse. Thereafter she was prescribed oral fl ucloxacillin and cetirizine, but still with no improvement and so she was referred to us. On examination, she had grouped and clear fl uidfi lled tense bullae on an erythematous base within a well demarcated distribution on the left shoulder and neck (fi g. 1). Our clinical diagnosis of herpes zoster was subsequently Blistering Eruption Following a Rubefacient Rub for Shoulder Discomfort

• Publication year

  2010

• Venue

  Annals of the Academy of Medicine, Singapore

• Publication date

  2010-11-01

• Fields of study

  Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.47102/annals-acadmedsg.v39n11p870PMID 21165529
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Topical rubefacients for acute and chronic pain in adults.

  2009cited by this paper
• Herpes zoster guideline of the German Dermatology Society (DDG).

  2003cited by this paper
• Pseudo-myocardial infarction during an episode of herpes zoster.

  2000cited by this paper
• Herpes Zoster Ophthalmicus Mimicking Carotid Artery Dissection: A Case Report

  1997cited by this paper
• A retrospective study of the clinical presentation and outcome of herpes zoster in a tertiary dermatology outpatient referral clinic

  1997cited by this paper

• No citing papers are available for this paper.