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I have been diagnosed with dermatitus herpetiformis for five years, not CD
and although I have not seen any letters on this topic, I thought there
still might be some readers who also have dermatitis herpetiformis and might
be able to answer my questions, after all that is one of the topics for this
mailing list.

        First, I take 25 mg of Dapsone a day because of my gluten
intolerance.  I am told that this is about 100 mg less than some people
which is good because it has side effects.  Why do I need to take the
medicine though if I am on a gluten free diet?  I know it helps because if I
go 2 days or sometimes even one day without taking it I develope a rash. Why
is this?  Second, when I have a rash and I scratch it, it gets worse. I can
understand that this might make it take it longer to get better, but why
does it make the rash become worse?

Matthew Johnson