Ok, I'm going to try and keep this from being long, but I need to talk a little to get all the facts out. I am a 22 year old White male, 210 pounds. No alergies of any kind to food or medicine.

I just recently started itching profusely, all over my body. I have not changed anything... new soaps, antipersperants/deoderants, colognes, etc. I actualy tried dove soap and natural laundry detergent for about a month, with no results.

usually the itching starts in the early morning hours and wakes me up, before time for me to get up for work. I have been losing sleep now for about 4 months. I mostly scratch the worst when I am half awake and don't realize it. The scratching continues most of the day usually, and sometimes I get into these little scratching episodes. 95% of the time I can control myself to the point where I don't break the skin. I know it isn't good to scratch. The scratching produces small red areas, not really any whelps or places like if I were breaking out. just small red places that eventually clear up and turn to normal skin color. I scartch pretty much everywhere but my face. scalp included.

I recently had a surgery and I do have metal to repair a broken bone inside my leg. this was the seond time, as I have had metal inside my leg for about 5 years from a previous injury. I dealt with a staph infection, in the form of an open wound for over a year in that leg. I have an open wound now, but its not an infection, just a sore, that is healing very slowly. I have very poor skin on my lower leg due to the trauma it has recieved from several motorcycle accidents. also, poor circulation. Hence, the surgeries...13 of them over the past 8 years, the last was in in Feb of this year.

I saw a regular doctor, and he seemed to think I had a staph infection on my skin due to the many small breaks, or pimple looking areas right around the hair folicles. those have since pretty much diminished, but I still have small areas of scabbing in different areas, i.e. the backs of my wrists, my lower legs and several places on my arms. After antibiotics from him and some creams...no change. I went to a dermatologist, who gave me a shot, pills, and steroid creams and some other things, 5 prescriptions to be exact, which had a good impact for about a week, but it came back worse.

The sores I get will not heal, the have a fungus type look to them if you look really close. I used antifungal cream too with no result. They don't look like a normal scab. I would post pics, but I know that isn't allowed here. It just seems that if it were something like shingles or scabies, the dermatologist would have recognized it. All I get from doctors is that its basically some type of reaction and you may not ever find what is causing it. WELL I HOPE I DO BECAUSE I COULD REALLY CARE LESS TO WALK AROUND ALL SCABBED UP WITH OPEN SORES..!

I think it may be something in my blood, due to the uncontrollability of it. Not sure.

I recently took a new job where I run an EDM machine. The machine is similar to a welder but it cuts metal in very intricate shapes with an electric arc. The reason I thought of this is because the skin problems started about the time i took this job, and this job introduces vaporized metal into the air inside the office where these machines are. Maybe I am having some sort of reaction to vaporized metal. just a thought..

I really need to get some answers on this, because I cannot miss work anymore just to go to a doc who gives me another "maybe its this"...

Thanks for the help..