As you learned from my last post below, I had a pretty rough Cholinergic Urticaria (heat hives) outbreak following a period of excess milk consumption (more than usual for me). Nothing else changed during this period. I had recently been “sweating it out” the previous week.
As soon as I ate more milk, I noticed 2 main symptoms that I think are related. First, the itchy eczema-like bump on my finger, and a highly noticeable increase in my sensitivity (I usually don’t have bad outbreaks just walking outside, or sitting in my apartment).
Putting 2 & 2 together: Milk, Hives, and Itching…Oh my!
So, if I increase milk consumption & begin having skin rashes that appear on my skin about 1 week later, then that tells me milk is doing something in my body that causes a reaction.
So…If milk can cause a physical rash & stomach problems (not CU, but an itchy red bump/rash), then it is not a stretch to assume that it COULD be linked to my Cholinergic Urticaria symptoms. How could it be doing this, I have no idea. Here is a possible theory if milk or food intolerance is indeed the culprit:
Perhaps my milk allergy/intolerance issue is somehow causing a build-up of certain immune antibodies (IgA, IgG, etc), that are collecting in my skin in excessive amounts. These aren’t activated unless I get heated. When I get heated, my body sends a signal to my sweat glands to release sweat. This chemical (probably acetylcholine), activates/stimulates these immune antibodies. This chemical causes our mast cells in our upper skin layer to break down, causing the histamine release, and subsequent itching/prickling.
Maybe that is why the sweating helps us. It keeps the sweat coming out, so it bypasses these chemical responses. The only problem is, once we stop sweating for a few days, or when winter comes…we are back to square one. So maybe that is why sweating helps, but may not CURE the CU symptoms permanently.
Now that is just my theory, not a fact. I could be completely wrong about this. It is simply an idea. I am not a doctor & certainly not an expert on hives/CU. But it is a working theory that may change over time as we find out more & try more experiments. Also, I will be doing an experiment with my diet to see if it helps. It may turn out that milk causes skin & stomach issues, but has nothing to do with CU. Only time will tell.
So, if that is true, then it could be something diet related (such as food intolerance such as gluten, milk, wheat, etc.), or a parasite or something that causes the body to build these chemicals up. It could be different for every person. I am thinking in my situation it is diet related.
Keep in mind, there is a guy named “sailor” that is on the yahoo answers forum, that has confirmed that he found out he was gluten intolerant. After about 1-2 months of going gluten free, his hives went away completely (he didn’t have CU, but had a different type of physical hives).
So, I will be making a new post detailing a new diet test I will be trying.
