Hi everyone,
I’m an 18-year-old boy from Malaysia but currently studying in Australia. I developed hives two years ago when I first came to Melbourne. Luckily, I stumbled upon this forum and started to do some experiments with my hives. So far, I’ve tried a lot of stuff but none of them is a complete cure for my hives. Here is the summary for what I’ve tried:
1) Diet
– I tried the eliminating diet method to find if I am allergy to any type of food which I’m not aware of. Unfortunately, diet is not the cause in my case.
2) Sweat therapy
– I bought an exercise bike at home so I can sweat regularly everyday. It helps to reduce the chance of hives breaking out for a period after you exercise just like everyone else said but is not a complete cure to hives. (Really challenging to sustain the pain and itch for 10 minutes before you actually start to sweat in cold weathers)
3) Antihistamines
– Tried a couple of different brands but never work for me.
4) Skin lotion
– Does not help with the hives.
After all my experiments, here are some clues I found:
1) Sweating is the trigger
– The itch and hives strike when my body wants to sweat. etc exercising, or eating spicy food.
2) The itching occurs in tiny dots all around my body, especially on my head, my face and my back
– This leads me to believe that clogged sweat pores might be a key clue to my hives. The question is what is clogging them and why.
3)Dry skin is not a cause but a negative consequence from the hives
– I used to have super oily skin until I developed hives. Now my skin becomes dry and scaly, further leads me to believe that clogged pores are the reason behind all these, as the ducts fail to moisturize my skin after they are clogged. This is why moisturizing lotion is not helpful at all for CU.
4)The Weather
– I notice that my hives are more severe during the Winter season and they temporarily disappear in Summer. However, the Spring is the most painful season with Melbourne’s weather where you can get 10 degree Celsius on one day and 30 degrees on the next day. The alternating between hot and cold temperature is probably an outstanding trigger for hives, since the cold temperature can close my pores.
Pursuing my point on clogged pores, I begin to think that whether my body is producing something that is clogging the pores. As we know that sweat contains waste from our body, maybe it is some unwanted toxic or waste that is clogging the pores. So, I decided to maintain my inner health by taking supplements such as pro-biotic, Vitamin C (as you mentioned), and etc to see if my condition improves.
The clogged pores theory explains why sweating temporarily helps , as we sweat our pores are no longer clogged so the pain and itch disappears. However, the pores are clogged again after we stopped and our body cooled down. (Just a guess)
I really hope that I can find a solution too, because (as we know) it is a pain in the ****. Do mind that everyone has different causes of cholinergic urticaria so keep trying and be patient and strong to find a solution. Always remember that you are not alone in facing these nasty hives. Good luck to everyone!
-Jeremy
[This post was submitted by a reader]
Ali says
Thank you for sharing your experiences Jeremy!
Sweating therapy is the only thing that helped a lot too and I know it’s painful to keep on exercising until you sweat.. if you want to sweat very fast to the point that you wont feel itchy then you have to go to a sauna.
I also believe that sweat pores are the reason. For some reason they are blocked and they do not open right away so when your body wants to sweat the water tries to go out but it hits a blocked pore (which causes you to feel itchy there) and then the water will try to find an exit and it will continue to hit different pores that are blocked which will cause you to feel itchy everywhere the waters hits. That’s just my theory but I am 100% sure if who every make these pills can make a pill that will open up the sweat pores then that will be a cure.
Ali
Hivesguy says
Jeremy,
Thanks so much for taking the time to share your experiences and experiments thus far. I’m sorry to hear that nothing has seemed to help so far. However, you seem like an intelligent guy who isn’t going to give up. I think you will eventually get your hives to a point where you can manage them. It can be annoying and take time and experimentation, but a lot of people have found solutions that work for them. Hang in there.
Cande says
Jeremy, what an awesome and intelligent post from such a young person. I’ve suffered this disease since I can remember and fourth grade was where I started recognizing the recurrences. This is probably the reason I don’t look forward to working up a sweat, but I’m used to it after all these years. I’m now 38 and just take an allergy pill before I workout (if I remember). It goes away after about an hour depending on how hard I sweated. I stick to low impact workouts, but I’ll never give up my dancing or Zumba classes. Like the other replies said I think You might be the one to figure out this painful affliction. Good luck and thank you!