Hello Everyone!
Sorry for this very long post. Well I have now been on this gluten-free/milk-free diet for a while now. There is still a lot of confusion (at least in my mind) about what exactly is going on with cholinergic urticaria. What exactly causes it to pop up out in the first place? Will it go away? Can it be cured? Is it genetic? Is it some abnormal allergic response? That is one reason why I am trying an allergy elimination diet, so I can see if removing certain possible allergens over an extended period of time will have any impact on the hives.
First, I want to remind everyone that may stumble in from a search engine that I am NOT a doctor, or any kind of specialist in hives, nutrition, or Cholinergic Urticaria. So please never interpret this website or my writitngs as authoritative in any way. In fact, everything I think about hives or experiment with could be completely wrong. Instead, I am just an ordinary guy who has suffered from hives on & off for almost 8 years now! I am sick of it (as I am sure most of you are sick of it), and I am trying everything I can to possibly eliminate the hives.
So I am sure some of you may be skeptical or at least wonder what my reasoning is as far as why I think it may be diet related. I agree with your skepticism, because there is always a possibility that this isn’t diet/allergy related at all. And people with CU may have different causes of the hives. I have mentioned a few things as to why I am on the diet, but I thought it would be worthwhile to write about all of the reasons/evidence why I think it is POSSIBLE that it could be diet (i.e. food allergy/intolerance) related.
Reason #1 Why I Am Trying The Diet– I Have Other Food Issues
I have literally lived my whole life eating whatever I wanted. I never had any food allergies or intolerances that I knew about. However, looking back in retrospect, I now realize that I have apparently had at least one food allergy or intolerance for a period of at least 2 years before my CU started. How do I know that? Well as you may have read from my earlier posts, I have now been able to successfully remove milk/gluten from my diet, and I no longer get severe stomach pains, bloating, rashes, etc. Let’s say I ate a big ice cream bowl or pizza tonight. I can GUARANTEE some severe pain will be in store for me, and I will be in the bathroom for like 1 hour just a few hours later. I have done this little milk experiment several times now, and I now know that it is FOR SURE milk that is causing this. It may be other things too, but for sure milk.
You see, I used to get CRAZY severe stomach problems. I mean I would be sitting in class at school, and suddenly, I would get stomach cramps so bad that I thought I was dying. I would get chill/goose bumps from the pain & the hairs on my arm would stand up. This would have quite frequently, somtimes daily. I never knew why. Now I experience these same symptoms ONLY after I have eaten large quantities of milk (and most things with milk also have loads of wheat–such as pizza, ice cream, etc.).
So if I have had this potential intolerance to milk (& possibly other foods), and yet continued to eat loads of it over a period of years (since I had no idea it was from the milk/foods), then it seems logical that something like that could cause some other strange symptoms to start popping up. It was also probably a big stress to my immune system, and definitely my stomach/intestines.
Reason # 2 Why I am Trying This Diet–I Started Developing Strange Rashes After Consuming Large Quantities of Certain Foods:
Never in my life did I ever have problems with dry skin or eczema or even rashes (with the exception of a few doses of poison ivy here & there-but that only lasted a couple of weeks). Instead the cholinergic urticaria (heat hives) started happening completely by itself with no other skin symptoms present.
However, about 2-3 years ago this changed. See, I have now had CU on & off for about 8 years. I had it bad when I first got it, but then after several months it seemed to completely go away. I then lived completely CU free for a period of time (approximately 2-3 years, but it is hard to remember exactly as I didn’t keep track since I thought it was over).
But about 6 months before I had my Cholinergic Urticaria symptoms come back the second time, I started to get this strange red dry spot that was itchy on the inside of my forearm at the top. I thought it was possibly ringworm or something because it was round. I put some basic corisone cream on it, and it eventually went away. I still didnt’ get CU again (this came about 5 months after that).
But guess what I was doing at that period of time when that itchy small round eczema rash popped up (it was about the size of a penny)? I was…thinking I was the next Arnold Schwarzenegger. I actually bought his weightlifting book, had the weights, and decided I was going to bulk up.
So I started pumping iron, and consuming large quantities of food. Of course, that consisted of lots of bread, milk, meat, etc. After a while, that was when I noticed the red itchy rash I mentioned above. By the way, I actually did gain some muscles, but after about 4 months, I hit a plateau, and I could not gain any more weight muscle for anything. I finally realized that I wasn’t going to realize my dream of looking like Ah-nold unless I took the “juice” like all the other big guys take. Since I am really against purposely harming my body & causing cancer (which is what steroids tend to do), I just gave up my bodybuilding dreams.
Okay, now fast forward about 5 months from that time. I moved out of my house with my mother, and my girlfriend & I got married & moved into our own apartment (the same apartment I still live in now). After a while, that is when the rashes kicked into high gear, and the CU decided to come back. I first started getting that rash on my arm, only this time it brought it’s best friends along with it. The back of my calves started getting a big red rash, that wasn’t super visible, but extremely itchy all the time. On my hands & finger, I started getting these strange bumps. On the back of my neck, I had several rashes, and on the back of my elbows.
At first I thought again I had ringworm or something. It was weird. I bought the anti-fungal cream–and it didn’t help at all. Nothing worked, until I put steroid cream on it. When I did that, it started fading. But not before my CU started happening again.
At this period of time, nothing was changing. I did move into a new environment (same county/location, just into an apartment about 18 miles away. Of course I had different water, but that wasn’t what caused the rashes. Instead, I think I can now chalk it up to the fact that I was eating all the junk foods I wanted since I bought my own groceries. No joke- I am talking 2-4 bowls of ice cream per day, 10 or more bowls of cereal per day, pizza every few days, etc.
At the time I had no idea that it was the milk/wheat foods causing all the rashes. I was depressed, itchy, and thought I would have not only CU but terrible rashes for the whole rest of my life. It sucked bad!
But I eventually started noticing that after eating ice cream, pizza, and milk–I would get cramps. Why it took years to notice, I have no idea. But I eventually started to reduce the quantity of milk in my diet. Eventually, the rashes stopped coming back. I now have ZERO rashes on my body, and it will stay that way unless I start to load up on milk, wheat, (and any other chemicals that may have caused it in the junk food).
Recently my CU hives got worse when I ate quite a bit of dairy/wheat in my diet. And as sure as the world, that little bump on my finger started coming back as well. So do you see that coincidence there: I ate more possible foods that I have an allergy/intolerance to, and not only did I get far more reactive with CU, but I started showing signs of a rash returning (it often starts as a bump on my finger, and then hands/neck/legs). The thing is, it takes a few days to see it happen. The stomach problems will usually happen about 4-5 hours or so after eating (with the exception of bloating which is sometimes instant). The rashes/increase hives don’t happen for a few days later.
So that is a BIG reason why I started thinking in terms of a possible connection of my hives and diet. It seems reasonable to me that if I start developing rashes/itchy bumps on my body by consuming certain foods, why not CU as well??
Reason # 3 Why I Am Trying This Diet: Other Hives Sufferers Have Been Completely Cured After Tweaking Their Diets:
Okay, another thing that has convinced me to really focus in on my diet is the fact that several people online are claiming to be completely cured of their hives after trying a particular diet, or realizing an intolerance/allergy that they never knew existed (and then removing it and bye bye hives).
Now first, these people had different types of hives. As I mentioned in an earlier post, there are several different kinds of hives. Some people had pressure hives (if you touch the skin or apply pressure they have hives). So there are different hives that you can have. And some people do not specifically say the exact hives symptoms that they had, but they do say they had them chronically (for a period of years usually). As far as I know, none of them had CU. But one did have Pressure/Cold urticaria-which is somewhat similar to CU.
I have read now several articles of people being cured from their hives after removing certain foods from their diets. Some of these people had gluten issues, etc. Here is a summary & a few links to verify what I am talking about:
First-A guy online by the ID of sailor- This is a nice guy that I personally spoke to about hives. He goes on the Yahoo answers forum quite frequently & talks to people about hives. He had them for almost 10 years, and went on a gluten free diet by mistake. He then noticed he stopped having hives after about 3-6 weeks of the diet. He has now been hives free for years. Here are some links to a couple of questions he has answered:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080724152023AAV6jhD
http://ca.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080528070219AAeNHrK
Second: A person that runs a gluten-free blog-Here is yet another person that suffered from chronic hives for nearly 10 years, and now lives hives free after going gluten-free.
http://glutenfreemommy.com/about-me/
Third: There is a Well Known Skin Rash Problem Called Dermatitis Herpetiformis. This is skin rash/itching condition that most doctors are starting to link with Gluten Intolerance/Celiac’s disease. People who have this are sometimes completely cured after going gluten-free. However, it can take as long as months, or even a year for the symptoms to be completely gone, because of the deposits of IgA in the skin (which causes the rash/itching). Almost anyone with this condition is strongly urged to go gluten-free to help control/manage/eliminate the symptoms. This confirmed in my mind that food allergies/intolerances can actually manifest in terms of hives/rashes, etc. Even if they weren’t initially considered diet related (or idiopathic).
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119949048/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
http://dermnetnz.org/immune/dermatitis-herpetiformis.html
Fourth: A Coment on a website about dermographism-Here is a comment left on a site about dermographism (another strange physical type of hives): The comment below is from the website: http://www.healthy-skincare.com/hives.html
“In every entry I have read in this hives blog (which in and of itself has been comforting to know that I am not the only one that suffers from this odd condition)….BUT…..I have something that might give us hope! It is not one of the easiest suggestions, but it sure worked for me! We may be allergic to gluten y’all! I experimented with a completely raw diet (there are tons of good books on how to get started) and my condition of the itching was GONE 100%! That is, after being completely raw for over a month.
Circumstances having to do with a great friend coming to town caused my stringent diet to gradually go back to the SAD (Standard American Diet) way of eating and sure enough the dermatographism and hives are back with a vengeance and I have not had the motivation to start up with raw again. Can you imagine KNOWING what works for me (at least) and NOT doing it? My doctor said she had met someone who was allergic to gluten and could (and did) write her name on her arm only to have it welt up like what we are all experiencing. So if it’s ONLY GLUTEN, the diet would not be quite as difficult as going completely raw. But after reading books on how very healthy one can get on a 100% raw diet, it’s worth trying at least.”
Conclusion on the resources: These are just a few resources of people personally stating that they were fully cured from their hives. Look at what most of these have in common:
1. They suffered from hives for a long time (up to 10 years) before realizing what was causing it. Most had no idea they had an allergy or problem with food.
2. They had to go on a diet & remove the thing that caused them problems (allergens such as gluten) for as long as 1-2 months or more to see the results! In other words, it wasn’t an overnight thing, or even a week thing. It took discipline of up to 1 month or more to see these lasting results. And they have to stick to the diet or the hives come back.
3. They aren’t trying to sell you something. Always watch out for that online! Instead, it appears that this is simply honest accounts of people who had a problem, were able to over-come it, and are nice enough to share it with others. A couple of the links above are excerpts from a medical article.
CONCLUSION:
Again, the purpose of this entire article is because I wanted to share all of my personal reasons for why I feel there is the POTENTIAL that there is a diet/allergen/intolerance link with SOME CU/Hives cases.
Does everyone in the world with hives or CU have a food allergy/intolerance-probably not, and that is not what I am trying to suggest here. Can CU even be cured? Maybe, maybe not? But that is what I do wish I knew, and hope to find out in the future.
This is simply a theory-nothing more, nothing less. Theories can be wrong, and I may very well be completely wrong or off-base here.
But here is the good news: Some theories can be tested, and this is one of them! So I am currently testing this theory right now personally–and I should have a pretty definite answer within the coming months. I feel that milk/gluten or some other food allergy/intolerance could be linked to my hives. I am basing this idea on the above reasons I talked about.
I plan to test this theory by avoiding milk/gluten from my diet completely for the next 2 months or so. If the diet works-then great! If it doesn’t work-then I will of course let you know about it. At that point I may continue to remove even more food allergens from my diet (such as soy, nuts, etc.), until I have removed all possible sources of food allergies. If that doesn’t work, I will probably experiment with trying other things to see if it helps my hives (such as using different water for bathing, etc).
Some of you may be saying to yourself…”This guy is nuts.” And you probably have every reason to say that. Because the truth is I probably have lost some of my sanity over these past few years of dealing with CU. These hives do drive me nuts, and maybe I am now on the brink of obsessing about curing them.
There was a long time when I just kind of gave up, and decided to just live with the hives. I thought that if that was the card I was dealt, then oh well. But now, my attitude has changed a little. I feel like I owe it to myself to try every possible thing I can to cure these hives (except for taking dangerous drugs/steroids). I will try every food allergen, remove every possible factor I can, and keep trying.
I can get over it if a diet doesn’t work, or if I try things my whole life & I am never cured. But I don’t think I could forgive myself if I didn’t try every possible thing I could try to free myself from hives and then pass this knowledge on to others that may develop this. Especially because I have had some pretty bad times of this, and it has definitely changed my life in many ways. So I continue to push forward, hoping to find a cure, or at the very least, an effective treatment for cholinergic urticaria.
