Cholinergic Urticaria (Chronic Heat Hives)-Cholinergic Urticaria.net I Get Itchy Heat Hives (Cholinergic Urticaria) When I Get Hot or Exercise

Hello Everyone,

I have a few important announcements regarding the website. I hope some of these changes will make the site better in many ways.

1.  The old site (HeatHives.com) has now moved to a new domain: CholinergicUrticaria.net.  You can still access the site using the old links, but I would recommend you update any bookmarks or links you may have to direct to the new site (and saving the link as a bookmark is a great idea, because let’s face it: nobody really wants to type that new domain every day). This also applies to the Cholinergic Urticaria forum

So far, it looks like the transition worked nicely and everything is working as it should. All of the URL’s should be the same–just replace the heathives.com part with cholinergicurticaria.net, and it should work fine. Sorry for any inconvenience.

The reason I did this is because Heat Hives is more of a generic term. I wanted to re-brand the site for what it is actually about: Cholinergic Urticaria. So that is why I made the change. Hopefully, this will allow the site to look more professional and people with CU will immediately be able to identify that this site is specifically about CU.

Some of the changes I will be making over the next week are as follows:

2. I will be tweaking a few of the appearance aspects of the site. I am going to adjust paragraph spacing, possibly change colors or font, and also tweak the design a bit. I hope this will make the site a little easier and more enjoyable to read. So you may see some funky looking stuff happening as I adjust a few things.

3. I will be changing the home page design and blog location. At this time, my most recent blog articles appear at the home page. I want to change this to a different format. Instead, I will create a new homepage, which will feature what I consider to be important information directly relating to cholinergic urticaria. This will include some basic information, and vital links to some of the best articles on the subject (some of which I will write from scratch to summarize what we have learned and shared at this point).

For example, I hope to create a special individual page about treatments, pictures, research articles, what is CU, etc. etc. So on the home page, I will include a small excerpt of these topics and link to them. That way, when someone gets referred to the  home page, they will have a wealth of great introductory information on cholinergic urticaria at their fingertips.

This is intended to make the site much more useful and user-friendly to any new visitors or CU people that stumble in. I will continue to blog, but I will move the blogging articles to a new directory (probably cholinergicurticaria.net/blog/), but I will let everyone know when I am done.

Also, on the home page, I will also try to put a small excerpt of the latest blog articles, and also latest forum posts. Again, the goal is simple: Make this the most useful site on cholinergic urticaria on the planet. If we can make this the top site on the web, this is a huge advantage. Not only will we be able to attract any CU people who go googling and round them up, but we will also potentially attract researchers, scientists, etc. who may be interested in asking us questions or running tests.

Furthermore, all people experiencing this won’t have to feel alone. They will be able to tap into a wealth of articles helping them to manage and treat their CU, and also connect with a community of people who know exactly what they are going through.

4. I am going to update a few articles, and may update a few forum posts. In an attempt to make the site as search engine friendly as possible, I may update a few of the articles, links, and so forth on this site. In addition, I may also edit some of the titles used in individual forum posts by all users. Again, this is just to help users & search engines find some of the great posts listed on the site.

As a quick tip, it is generally better to use a clear and long title when posting on the forum. Long and clearly written titles tend to get more views (and replies) on the forum. Here are two quick examples to illustrate what I mean:

When viewing the forum, which thread title are you likely to click to read and/or respond to?

1. sunscreen?
2. Does Sunscreen Make Your Cholinergic Urticaria Itch More?

Most people would be more drawn to number 2 (or at least know if  it were relevant to them). By using a more descriptive title, you let the forum readers understand what the thread is about, which may lead to more responses. Also, it lets search engines know what it is about, which again, leads to more readers, which may lead to more replies, which then leads to more potential information we can all share. Again, this is just a general tip you all may want to follow to get more replies to your questions and so forth.

Conclusion: The Site is Changing a Bit for the Better (Hopefully)

I hope these changes really make this site more user-friendly, seo friendly, and more.  The goal is to make 1 giant resource that is specifically about one topic: cholinergic urticaria.

I feel that over time, we will not only have the best site & forum on the web about this condition, but we may even be able to work together to find a treatment which could lead to complete remission of the condition. In any event, the more popular and visible the site becomes, the better our chances will be of this happening.

Thanks again for all of your contributions,

Ben (HivesGuy)

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You may have heard people say that caffeine, soft drinks, or those energy drinks can be bad for your kidneys and even cause renal failure. Well guess what? They weren’t joking when they said that!

I have always enjoyed the occasional soft drink, especially with a really big meal. There is nothing quite like the taste of a coke (or off brand cola) with a good pizza or steak dinner…ahh.

But unfortunately, my occasional enjoyment of the soft drinks progressed from a couple of soft drinks per week, to 1 soft drink per day, to a couple of soft drinks per day, to sometimes as many as 3. This all occurred over a 8 month period slowly, and I have regularly consumed 2 soft drinks per day for the last 2-4 months at least.

I knew it probably wasn’t good for my body (and I did plan on cutting back soon), but I kept chugging them down with every meal anyway, not really realizing that I was over-doing it big time. Well, that was until about 2 weeks ago, when my kidneys started to KILL me!

My Kidneys Were Very Sore and Painful from Drinking Soft Drinks & Caffeine

I began noticing that my lower back and sides (between my rib cage and pelvis) was really started to have this odd dull ache. I also started to notice that my bladder felt full and bloated all the time, and I was trying to urinate several times per day to relieve this feeling (which only slightly helped, but not really). Sorry if that is too much info…

This pain got worse each day, until I started to get very nervous. I didn’t know if I had a UTI (bladder infection), kidney infection, or what was going on.

My kidneys ached so badly, I was practically bedridden for a few days, barely leaving my bed to simply eat and use the bathroom. I had no fever or anything, but I was in pain and felt weak. My wife had to take care of me because I felt terrible.

At first, I didn’t know what was causing this. Then, my lovely wife (who is an RN nurse), suggested that it could have been all the soft drinks I have been chugging at my meals (while she drank usually drank water). She said, “Bennie, it’s probably all of those soft drinks. The caffeine in soft drinks can be really bad for your kidneys. Trust me”

I immediately agreed because it reminded me of how I went through this same thing when I was 18 years old (I had almost forgotten). My sides and back had this terrible dull ache. I went to the doctor about it back then, and had a urine test to make sure I didn’t have an infection or something. They said it was fine and I had no infection, but I did have some protein in my urine. I guess that is sometimes normal.

The doctor at the time said that the soft drinks didn’t cause the pain (yeah right), because (listen to this), “soft drinks go in your stomach, not your kidneys.”

That is what he said word for word, I swear. Wow. Some doctors aren’t too bright. Keep in mind this is the same doctor that told me that my hives was probably due to “dry skin.” Well, at least there are some smart doctors out there, I just haven’t dealt with most of them…

Your kidneys filter all sorts of things, and we now know over consumption of energy drinks, soft drinks, caffeine, etc. can lead to kidney problems, and even renal failure in some cases. I stopped drinking them back then, and my health bounced back in a week or two, and there was no doubt in my mind the soft drinks were the ONLY thing causing this pain, as that is the only thing I removed both times from my diet to improve my health.

Anyway, I made a vow to scrap any soft drinks for a long long time once again. I bought a bunch of gallons of cranberry juice (just in case I did have any bacteria in my bladder), and drank lots of water instead of my usual Sam’s Club cola.  It took about a week and half, but after going back to drinking water and juice, my kidneys are back to normal, and I feel great again (minus the regular cholinergic urticaria). It was rather scary, and to anyone with kidney problems, my heart goes out to you.

So no more soft drinks for me! I honestly feel better anyway, as those things can zap your energy and make you feel like crap (and gain weight). Oh well, just thought I’d share. If anyone starts having pain in your lower back and sides, you may want to look at your diet and/or drinking habits. If you drink lots of coffee, alcohol, soft drinks, or caffeine, it may be wise to cut it out and drink more water to make them stop hurting. And see a doctor ASAP if necessary.

Water and juice is the best thing for your kidneys anyway. So drink plenty of water! It may also help your Cholinergic Urticaria (as some say drinking more water seems to help).

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