This happened to me when my daughter used to wake in the middle of the night causing me to jump out of deep sleep. Doctor was useless and said I must be coming into contact with things.
When my sleep was fixed, it went away. Then went though a short period of it happening again, and the rash came back.
In general contact eczema or a food intolerance would be the cause. Lack of sleep really would be unusual - I've never heard of it (though I'm not a medical person). I think slagging off your doc for making reasonable conclusions is unfair. Debugging ASM has got to be an utter picnic compared to troubleshooting humans in a short time-slot.
You're right, it is extremely unusual and I shouldn't be speaking in this way about my doctor. They do in fact do great work for the majority of cases.
IIRC the repair/replace cycles of the body including the skin are affected by sleep patterns, because of different hormone levels and other changes between wake & sleep states, which might indirectly be why your skin suffers from stress (because we know stress can significantly affect patterns and effectiveness of sleep). The immune system can be affected also.
I get mild eczema and sometimes have periods of insomnia, I've noticed not sleeping enough for a few days to be something that often seems linked to a break-out of raw itchy patches.
Also rubbing is often a subconscious "tick" while stressed, so you may be putting extra strain on the skin that way too?
Exact same thing here! Happens on the sides of my fingers during times of high stress. Looks like dyshidrodic eczema and leaves tiny red dots when it goes away.
I've gotten rashes on my hand too, but I thought it was an allergic reaction to some unknown thing in my environment. Perhaps it could've been stress? But I don't recall being stressed.
They are small bumps (lots) which are not red but has same color as my skin. They retain water in them. They fade away in a week with dead skins at those spots. In two weeks they leave no trace.
I've had occasions where I get small patches on my hands where the skin dries and cracks - I had no idea what was causing them and wondered if it might be stress. I was pretty sure it wasn't anything physical.
My GP simply recommended using superglue to seal the cracks up and that did help!
"It is also possible for emotional stress to trigger an outbreak of hives. There can be a number of hormonal or chemical changes that occur in response to stress.
These changes can trigger blood vessels to expand and leak, causing red and swollen patches of skin."
> It is also possible for emotional stress to trigger an outbreak of hives.
No doubt, stress has physiological effects, but so does laughter and excitement. Having stress is a normal part of being a human. In reasonable doses it's fine.
I've always found it ironic that one of the best antidotes for day to day stress is to be in a situation where you get "stressed" in a completely different way... (the main factor in the 'positive' stress situations for me being in fairly complete control, confidence in your own abilities and requirement to focus on the matter in hand for a few hours).