“I can't take a bath without crying, the pain is so bad,” was the strange complaint of an eighty-two-year-old woman. She told us she suffered with severe burning pain in her skin following every bath. It had been a problem for over six years. The pain began within minutes after she got out of the bath and lasted for nearly an hour. It was so severe that she limited her bathing to once a week. The pain never came on as long as she was in the tub, so she tended to prolong her bath time. It made no difference whether the bath water was hot or cold. She had further learned that adding bicarbonate or salt to the bath water gave no relief. Staying in the bath for an hour or so seemed to reduce the amount of postbath pain, but she was unable to reduce the pain by repeated bathing every hour. Antihistaminics had given no protection.

Her problem was unique and we had only a few leads. It was not something she had experienced as a child, but had come on late in life. No one else in her family had this problem. We could find no reference to it in a computer search of medical articles. Could it be feigned? Could it be due to stress, hypochondriasis, a neurosis, or even a psychosis? As we became acquainted with this lady over a period of months, none of these possibilities seemed reasonable.