A pre-teen boy was brought to doctors with what looked like unexplained bruising across his abdomen. Doctors, worried about something hidden beneath the skin, checked for a liver injury. Blood tests and scans came back normal. The rash kept getting worse anyway.
The answer had been resting on top of him the whole time. According to a case report in BMJ Case Reports, published in September 2026, the boy had been balancing his laptop on his bare abdomen for up to eight hours a day while home-schooling, often while it was charging. The diagnosis was erythema ab igne, better known as "toasted skin syndrome,"a heat-related skin condition long associated with heating pads, hot water bottles and open fires.
