Hey "El"
Happy 4th of July! 
From personal & formal experience I'll chip in my 0.2cents.
The 1st 6 months I took Enbrel 25mg twice weekly there was barely any trace of any sort of stick that took place. The 6 months after that the site began to turn like you explained.
When I took the 50mg Enbrel after a while they were raised, pinkish, itchy and like a bee-sting sorta.
It is a predictable reaction really. Bound to happen. The red flag warning to watch for is if this reaction site area starts to spread, otherwise it's an "adverse normal" side effect (ironic that phrase is!)....pretty much benign, annoying but benign.
Some odds n' ends:
- The more superficial the needle & medication goes into the skin the more raised a bump can occur. If the solution isn't hitting a fat layer, it's going to aggrevate the skin and kinda just stay there...all lumpy, itchy & annoying.
- When clothing touches the injection site...like the waist of a pant, stockings, etc...that'll raise & irritate it more.
- Like poison ivy, the more it's touched, scratched, rubbed...the more it will itch.
- Not a great idea to put any OTC lotions, ointments, etc...on it. There is a small SMALL break in skin & it could burn or mess with the medication that was injected.
- Bandaids can make it worse too.
- Rule out any LATEX sensitivity?
- An antihistamine taken the day of or 2 hours before the injection may prevent this from happenning.
So I would place my bets on leaving the site open to air for the 1st few hours afterwards. I know what ya mean though, they turn into big ol' welts. Some of the reactions I had were really funny looking too. Quite irregular! Similar to when we would scratch the heck out of a mosquito bite as kids and they'de turn into gigantic red blothches.
Wouldn't hurt to ask the rheummy about a topical RX for this. I'm curious if there is something like a steroidal lotion for them...maybe there is.
Do you inject into the thighs or abdomen?
Take care El.
