My younger son needs some help - counseling (dealing with anxiety...this has happened before)

Thus far - our odyssey to get "help" for him has us telling the doc that his insurance won't cover the meds the doc wants to Rx (it would be 600.00 out of pocket per month for us to pay for it) AND the insurance co. will start paying 100% of his counseling bills AFTER we meet his 4,000 dollar deductible.

And this is considered "good" health insurance...

My son has a rash on his exposed skin, in pretty much the same locations where a person would get sunburn if they were wearing a tshirt and shorts. No idea what's causing it, but I can't help coming back to the fact that we just installed all new carpeting upstairs on Friday. I really hope it's not the carpet. He also went to a birthday party on Saturday and played in a different park, and ate different food. And threw up at that sleep over. Some kind of stomach bug. Let's see, he also helped us wash the walls with some sort of cleaning product and water before we painted them, That was dripping all over his arms. And he helped paint. That was Saturday. And then on Sunday, he felt better after being sick, and he did a lot of the work of replacing the old toilet, and was with me while I (carefully) used some solvent based chemicals to try to remove the last bits of wax reside from the old toilet.

He's been exposed to a lot of different stuff in the last few days. Could be anything, but I hope it's not the new carpet.

Hmmmm, worrying. Has he been out in the sun in t-shirt and shorts? How old is he?

From there things you listed, carpet is at the bottom of the list.
You have plenty of other things on there. Hoping for the best.

We haven't had too much sun, but yeah, he's been out in it in tshirt and shorts. He's 9.

My wife got a doctors appointment for him early this afternoon, so we'll see if they have any insights.

I forgot that he was also wrestling around on the sidelines of his sister's soccer game in the grass. But I'd expect that to put a rash on his elbows and knees if the grass irritated him.

He's not itchy, which is good, but he's complaining that the skin is warm. We sent him off to school today, since he seemed to be in fairly good spirits and he's got a big test this morning. But my wife will pick him up after the test and give him more benadryl.

I disagree, I'd put it second after actual sun exposure. Rashes caused by fumes/food/sickness would most likely not be limited to exposed skin, and (i'm inferring) the paint was not on the legs. But on the positive side, even if it is carpet-related, it could be some manufacturing/installation residue that will disappear with vacuuming/steam cleaning.

Young kids especially sometimes have surprise skin reactions to sun exposure. I bet it's some sort of sunburn/heat rash thing.

Some sort of sun thing makes sense. It really looks a lot like sunburn, except it's bumpy and rash-like. And the sun was out on Saturday and a bit on Sunday.

especially if it was humid -that's when I and my kids get heat rashy things. It also seems worse when we are wearing sunblock and it's humid, perhaps because sweating is impeded.

This is what $5689.53 worth of front end damage looks like on a Juke:

My Windstar looks a whole lot worse than that.

Wow. That looks like almost nothing.

yup. frame damage, technically because some connector rods got bent. We already sold it, though, so that's good. guy got a great deal.

Damn Jim - way to go! I remember the damage to my Nissan when I got rear ended on 95 - was less monetarily than that and looked a whole lot worse.

Doctor says:
Fifth Disease. A viral infection that will go away in a couple weeks. Sunlight makes it worse. If she's right, then it's not the new carpet. Yay! He may get worse before he gets better, but he's not contagious (any longer) now that the rash has presented, so school is fine. I guess we should keep him out of the sun for a while. That sucks.