They could most definitely be related to working in the garden!! A great many different and quite common garden plants can cause contact dermatitis. Depending on one's sensitivity, the reaction can be very mild to quite severe and can often take several days to fully develop.

Keep the area clean and apply an ointment to sooth and deter scratching - vaseline, aloe jell, calamine lotion or hydrocortisone cream.

Happens to gardeners all the time :-) And those do not look like any bug bite.

I agree with the above especially the "often take several days to fully develop". Whenever I have to remove Euonymus if I am not careful with the cut surfaces I end up with similar ones which take about a week before they are in their full glory.

If it gets really bad, take Benadryl.

(I like the chewable kid's version because you can easily take a smaller dose than directed, and then take more if it's not enough. That way you'll be less likely to be knocked out. A full dose of Benadryl always puts me to sleep, but usually a half dose is enough for whatever is making me itch and I can still stay awake.)

Your second and third pictures look like the beginning of poison ivy blisters to me. Try some Cortaid. If it gets much worse, the doctor can give you a shot and/or some cortisone pills to take for 5 to 7 days.

Ohh good point, Suzanne!

If you're in a poison ivy (or oak, or sumac) area, be familiar with what it looks like and see if you've got it in your yard. And then destroy it.

Virginia Creeper and the Euonymus I mentioned above will cause blisters that look like poison ivy. My neighbor thought she have poison ivy that left a brown coloration to her skin as it healed. She carried the cut branches and the sap from the cut ends caused her blisters. Her husband thought I was lying until he cut a piece and rubbed it on his skin. Yes he did apologize much later.

Maifleur, I like your style! :)

Fori at least I tried to warn him. I had thought it was only Virginia Creeper I had problems with until a Euonymus stem brushed my arm. I try not to lie although I learned how to shade the truth very well in my early working days.

If a person is sensitive it does not make any difference what causes the sensitivity. I am a hands on gardener and only through observation have I learned what causes me problems and what does not. Each person is different and I would suggest that everyone if they have a problem try to think back to the area of the garden they were working in. If there is a similar section observe what is there. It may be a very common plant that only you have a problem with but with observation you can discover which plants to avoid.

Now, if you have Jewelweed (Impaiens capensi) growing near you, I have found it relieves all manner of plant induced irritations.

tj

Poison ivy of course is a pretty common cause of irritation so I'd still check for it first in the interest of saving time. :)

Thank you all so much. I will definitely have a look at the plants in my garden. It is a new house we moved in a month ago and I was cleaning up the garden and planting alot. There is a plant growing from the field behind us over the wall and I think it might be it. I live in South Africa and there is a poison ivy type plant growing here.. I will just familiarize myself to how they look like.