In reply to Removed UserIanMcN:
Interesting. I had really bad skin rash two years ago. No one knew what it was, we thought it was bed bugs so got rid of masses of clothes/bedding etc, and I slept on the floor in the conservatory (all while trying to sell the house), but that didn't help. Eventually got a week's 30mg prednisolone course, which got rid of it.
The day after the pred ran out I was bluelighted to hospital with swollen tongue, lips, face, the works. A real Mick Jagger/Bo Selecta thing. Diagnosed much later with spontaneous ideopathic chronic urticaria and angioedema, and after eight grim months of a massive 720mg dose of fexofenadine (an antihistamine) and slowly tapering withdrawal from pred (whose role as a PED, incidentally, is much exaggerated; if anything my road bike times suffered), I'm now on 180mg fexo every other day, which seems to keep whatever it is at bay, although I still have tingling in the old extremities.
The immunologist at Derriford said she had no idea what the cause was, but it was probably some stressful life event and that everyone who had walked through her door that day had the same thing...
Haven't been to Scotland in tick season for years.