{"id":19759,"date":"2022-07-11T08:56:56","date_gmt":"2022-07-11T13:56:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepapergown.zocdoc.com\/?p=19759"},"modified":"2026-08-14T09:39:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T14:39:31","slug":"i-thought-i-was-suffering-from-bug-bites-it-was-actually-a-rare-skin-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zocdoc.com\/blog\/patient-stories\/i-thought-i-was-suffering-from-bug-bites-it-was-actually-a-rare-skin-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"I Thought I Was Suffering From Bug Bites. It Was Actually a Rare Skin Disease."},"content":{"rendered":"

When internist Dr. Shaman Singh, 43, developed mysterious red bumps on his feet after a May hotel stay for a medical conference, he chalked it up to bug bites.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fast forward to Mother\u2019s Day: The alarming rash on his feet had rapidly spread to his legs. Singh had to cancel plans for a celebratory family brunch. He headed to a nearby emergency room the next day, May 9.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

By that point, the itchy red bumps had begun to blister, and Singh, the associate chief medical informatics officer at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, knew that something was direly wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the worst sensation I\u2019ve ever had,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019d say it was an 8 out of 10 on the pain scale, to the point where I couldn’t do much of anything.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The emergency department did not have a dermatologist on call, so Singh left empty-handed \u2014 except for a long list of dermatologists in the area.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy whole point of going to the ER was to expedite things,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen they gave me the spreadsheet, I was like, \u2018You\u2019ve got to be kidding me.\u2019 I was set back to square one, which was essentially, \u2018Figure it out for yourself.’\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When he got home, he spent the next two hours calling each office; the earliest appointment he could find was May 19. Singh debated going to another hospital, but after a quick search online, he stumbled upon Zocdoc. While he knew of it, he\u2019d never used it before. He found and booked an appointment with <\/span>Dr. Sarah Hogan<\/span><\/a> for the next day.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Singh was \u201cshocked\u201d that he could find someone less than a 10-minute drive away, less than 24 hours after he\u2019d been discharged from the ER. \u201cRight away, she was on the same wavelength as I was,\u201d he says\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hogan took a few biopsies, and Singh got his results back by May 18, before he would have seen that first doctor.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He was diagnosed with <\/span>Henoch-Sch\u00f6nlein purpura<\/span><\/a>, a rare skin disease that causes inflammation of the blood vessels. While the exact cause is unknown, research suggests that it\u2019s the result of an abnormal immune response, potentially from something like the common cold.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Since his first appointment, Singh has been seeing Hogan weekly. Most of the lesions have healed, and he hasn\u2019t developed any new ones since he started treatment. He\u2019s pleased with how the process has gone, and credits Zocdoc with his quick recovery.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, for my family, anytime we need to bounce out of the primary care lane and go to a podiatrist or dermatologist or anything else,\u201d he says, \u201cZocdoc\u2019s going to be the first place I look.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n