I look like a leopard and there's nothing they can do about it!

During the weekend before last, I found a weird round spot on the inside of my upper arm. Perfectly round. It wasn't the usual hives that I get, which doctors don't seem to be able to do anything about, but something different. And it didn't just go away. The only round skin rash/spot/thingies I'd ever heard of was ringworm, so I started using an anti-fungal treatment. Then, on Saturday, I found more of them, all over my chest. And the original spot hadn't cleared up. So I started looking at pictures on the internet of ringworm and, while I am aware that they usually put the most severe pictures up on medical websites, I could clearly see that what I had looked nothing like these pictures. I couldn't really find any pictures of what I had. And there were more and more spots, none of which were responding to the anti-fungal.

So today I went to the doctor because I was worried about not only what this was but also about spreading it, especially at work, even though all of the spots I have are covered by my clothes at work. It was a case of good news, bad news. Good news: Treatment isn't going to cost me much and it is definately not contagious. Bad news: There is no treatment. It is a condition called pityriasis rosea. No one really knows what causes it and you can't really do anything to "cure" it, perse. Just use creams to keep down the itching and it should go away in two or three months. On the whole, I feel better but now I can't take my shirt off or wear anything remotely low-cut because my chest is covered in small and large spots. I don't have a great deal of faith in the medical field because, if they can't treat any of these minor things, like identifying what my hives are or making me not look like a human-leopard hybrid, I'm not sure why I should have faith that they can do anything about the bigger things.