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

I was recently thinking about Cholinergic Urticaria. After all, it is kind of hard to forget about it when you feel it every single day, blog about cholinergic urticaria, and so forth.

Anyway, I was thinking about how the lack of medical knowledge and research seems to be quite shameful. After all, many of us seem to be more knowledgeable about cholinergic urticaria (based on hours of research online), than most of our doctors. I am not suggesting they should turn down cancer patients to cure our little itchies. But at least they should educate themselves more about the condition.

So this got me thinking, “Is cholinergic urticaria even a disease? Or is a symptom of another issue?” So I thought I would discuss some of my thoughts on the issue.

Is Cholinergic Urticaria Better Classified As A Disease or a Symptom?

To first consider this, let us look at the definition of a symptom and the definition of a disease, and compare them.

1. Disease: an impairment of health or a condition of abnormal functioning
2. Symptom: Any sensation or change in bodily function that is experienced by a patient and is associated with a particular disease

Those definitions are somewhat similar, but there is a difference. A disease is the main thing causing an illness. It also has symptoms-which are the result of the disease’s affect on the body. An example would be Strep Throat. Strep Throat is a bacterial infection (disease). It has symptoms as well (sore throat, fever, vomiting, etc.). But Strep Throat is clearly a disease.

So a disease by itself is what causes a condition and the subsequent symptoms. Whereas, the symptom is merely a result of an underlying disease. Are you confused now? I hope not.

So now that we have a basic understanding, it begs the question, “Is cholinergic urticaria a symptom or a disease.”

I feel fairly strongly that cholinergic urticaria is not even a disease to begin with. In my opinion, it is simply a symptom of something bigger going on. Whether be an allergic response, hormone issue, blocked pores, or whatever.

Why do I feel Cholinergic Urticaria is a symptom rather than a disease? Well, just take my wife’s recent bout with a cinnamon allergy. She started to get a rash on her that was very itchy and uncomfortable. Was the rash a disease? No, of course not. Why? Because it was merely a symptom of something else going on in her body (an immune response to cinnamon).

Or for another example. What about the rashes, stomach upsets, and so forth that people experience when they have Celiac Disease (Gluten-intolerance)? Those things are only symptoms of a something bigger going on (an allergic response to gluten).

So for cholinergic urticaria, I think that it is again a strange hives-type of symptom. In fact, most hives conditions are found to be a response of an allergy. If you take antibiotics and happen to be allergic to it: Presto, you will get hives. Or if you eat a food you are severely allergic to: Presto, hives again.

Hives can manifest in different ways. For some reason, we have cholinergic urticaria. Some may get dermatographic urticaria. Some may get cold urticaria. But what do all these have in common? In my opinion, they are just the symptom of something else going on.

The body is having some sort of odd reaction to a chemical, food, or environmental thing. Therefore, cholinergic urticaria happens to use when our bodies get hot. Obviously, we aren’t allergic to heat itself. Our bodies are just doing something inside, and the heat merely triggers it.

Another reason why I prefer to think of cholinergic urticaria as a symptom is because it forces me to think harder about the actual “disease” that is causing the symptom. Therefore, I feel like I have a better chance of eventually solving the CU puzzle. This could potentially lead to better treatments for cholinergic urticaria.

This can again be analogized to a doctor. If we went in to the doctor with a sore throat, the doctor can do 1 of 2 things. They can treat the symptom, or they can treat the disease. By giving us a throat lozenge, they can reduce the sore throat symptom. But does that do any good? No, the throat will remain sore because it is just a symptom of a greater disease.Instead, if they treat the disease (Strep), the symptoms will automatically disappear.

I feel like this is exactly what happens with cholinergic urticaria. Doctors assume it is a disease, when if fact I believe it may be a symptom of something else. So they treat the symptom (antihistamines), and not the disease.

Therefore, we still have CU, and only reduce the symptoms with antihistamines. Don’t get me wrong, it is great to reduce the hives symptoms any way we can. But at the same time, it surely doesn’t cure it for most of us. Why? Because something else is happening that is merely causing the hives. The hives themselves are just a symptom of that greater problem.

If we just mentally stop and accept the CU as a disease in itself, then we tend to stop thinking of what is causing it, and instead look to ways to manage it. If, however, we view it as a symptom, we tend to think things like, “What is causing this strange symptom.” Not only do we continue to try to manage it, but we also continue to think about the possible underlying causes.

So in conclusion: I feel like Cholinergic Urticaria is probably more accurately labeled a symptom than a disease. I hope I am right, and I hope one day we can find out what disease or problem is actually causing the hives symptoms.

Recent Bad Hives Attack (Yesterday)

Yesterday I was terribly sick, and had a ferocious hives attack. It all started on Saturday. As I mentioned, I am going to do a complete change in my diet, and cut out all of the crap foods (gluten, milk, processed foods/drinks, etc.). I am dead serious about this too.

Anyway, on Saturday I had eaten some left over Japanese food from a day before. I have ate at this place before, and it usually doesn’t bother me at all. So I ate the “sesame chicken” meal. I also ate a bowl of “Dyno-Bites” cereal that day, which is not the usual cereal I had been eating. I am not sure which one of those two did it, but I was in severe pain come the next day.

I ate the food, and felt fine all day Saturday. Then, on Sunday morning I woke up. I noticed my stomach was a little crampy, but I brushed it off as nothing. Then, I had to use the bathroom.

My stomach literally felt like it was being ripped out. I was in terrible pain, which I hadn’t felt for quite a while. I have mentioned this in several posts before about a huge correlation between my bad diet habits, and the hives intensity, and yesterday this was once again true.

So while using the bathroom, I actually started having hives! Great.  So not only am I in complete misery from my stomach pains, but now I am scratching all over and feeling like I am getting stung by bees. I am struggling to try and pour water from the faucet on me. Guess what, it didn’t help.

So I actually had my wife bring a fan in the bathroom and turn on the air conditioner, so I could pour water on me, have the fan cool me off, and get some relief from the hives until I as finished. Gross yes? Sad? You bet. I hate hives, and I hate my stomach/allergy/food intolerance issues. The only good news is that at least I can control the food issues (although it can be hard at times).

So anyway, the hives were intense, and I finally finished using the bathroom (which was torture in itself). I had my shirt off, and when I was washing my hands, I looked at my chest and shoulders. There were literally hundreds of red “hives” dots all over me. More than I have probably ever seen before during an attack. They eventually went away a few minutes later.

My wife seen me afterward, and couldn’t believe it. She said my face was so pale that I looked like I was dead. I sat in bed and didn’t move for the next 2 hours. It felt like I was dying. I was so weak after the hives and stomach pain. It took half of the day for me to get any energy back.

So to make a long story short, I am eating super clean. We are going to the store in the next day or two, and I am only eating original ingredients that I know for sure don’t bother my stomach or hives. No processed or store made stuff. My body literally can’t take this anymore.

Another strange thing is that my mom recently had a bad infection of diverticulitis. Basically, that condition means there are tiny pockets in the intestines that get inflamed and infected. It can straight up kill you if you don’t get treated with antibiotics.

I sometimes wonder if I will get that (or if I have it now). But I don’t think so. In any event, it is time to clean up my diet. I can’t wait for the hives to improve, although I know it will take at least a week or two on this diet to see an improvement.

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In a recent post, I talked about how my wife had recently developed a strange eczema-type rash on her chest and back. Just to recap, this rash slowly developed over a period of a few weeks, until the rash was getting quite noticeable, and really bothering her.

She was really starting to get aggravated about the rash. She would be sitting in bed, and then start scratching her back, and then her chest. It was itching her quite a bit in her sleep as well.

She also said that while she was at work, it would get itchy, especially when she would get heated. I found that interesting, and in fact, many people with eczema also get really itchy when they get hot. However, I don’t think it is quite such as “prickly” sensation like Cholinergic Urticaria. I think it is more of a typical itch.

I jokingly told her to amplify her rashes by about 1,000 times and then she can know what it is like to live in my skin (and the rest of you). I think it helped her relate to my hives a bit more, as she felt first hand how uncomfortable itchiness can be (although it was still nothing compared to hives).

What Caused My Wife’s Rash on Her Chest and Back?

When my wife first started to get this rash, I was really shocked. My wife has always had gorgeous skin. It is the really clear and smooth type, that has really nice glow to it. In fact, I compliment her all the time on her awesome skin. She never seems to have an issue with eczema, itching, or anything like that.

So whenever she got the rash, I was perplexed. I didn’t really put much thought into it at first, thinking that it may pass or something. But after it started to get progressively worse, I started to give more serious attention to it.

So we started thinking of everything that could potentially be causing her rash & itching. We thought perhaps it was a new detergent we got, but it was supposedly a “hypo-allergenic” brand with no artificial chemicals or scents (made by ALL Brand). So we shot down that idea.

Then, we thought perhaps the shampoo, but she had used that before and had no issues. Then we considered lotion, but she had been using that for a couple of months with no issues. We thought and thought, and couldn’t figure anything out.

But I knew that rashes just don’t pop out of the blue. Something was causing this to happen, and the fact that it kept getting worse made me realize we need to figure it out soon. My logical type of thinking always makes me want to “solve the puzzle.” Perhaps that is one reason why CU has been driving me so crazy, I haven’t yet been able to “solve it.”

Anyway, I kept pondering and pondering about my wife’s rash. I tried to rack my brain to think of anything that has ever caused her to get a rash or reaction. Then suddenly, I remembered that several years ago, she had this cinnamon flavored toothpaste at her mom’s house. When she would use it, her lips would get red and a little puffy.

So I briefly thought about Cinnamon. I also remembered how when she ate cinnamon gum, it would also cause a slight redness around her lips.  So naturally, my thoughts were, “If she gets that kind of reaction from cinnamon on her mouth, then she must be allergic to it. Do we have anything cinnamon she has been eating lately?”

Bingo. I then started thinking about how she recently switched her breakfast meal. She normally eats those Eggo Waffles with syrup. However, she had recently been eating a new cinnamon kind. Furthermore, she also started buying applesauce, and surprise, it too had cinnamon in it. This all happened right at the same time as the rash (give or take a few weeks).

So I jumped up with excitement, and said, “I know what is causing this babe!” She was like, “What?” in a somewhat skeptical tone. And I proceeded to tell her my theory. I reminded her of the cinnamon reactions she had in the past, and then pointed out that her rashes began about 1-2 weeks after she started eating all the new foods with cinnamon in it.

She thought about it for a  few seconds and said, “Oh my gosh Ben, I think you are right.” So she completely cut the cinnamon out of her diet, and her rash slowly improved. It is now completely gone! She is 100% back to normal! So cinnamon was definitely the cause, and once that was gone, so was the rash.

Of course, I have been really happy about it (after all, I solved the puzzle, and prevented further suffering for my wife). I have been rubbing it in her face and saying, “You’re the big RN nurse, but yet I was the mastermind that figured out your rash.” Of course, I am totally joking, but it is fun to play around like that with her. She just replies, “Your right Bennie-Bob, you cured me.” I know, Bennie-Bob is corny, but I like how she calls me that.

Relating Cholinergic Urticaria to My Wife’s Eczema

My wife’s little rash experience was certainly nothing like CU. Cholinergic Urticaria symptoms are way worse, more painful, more itchy, etc. However, this whole experience has really got me thinking.

If I had never figured out that cinnamon was the cause of my wife’s rash, she would have kept eating the foods that were stressing out her system. Her rashes would have persisted, and she would have been miserable for the whole summer, possibly longer. She would have had the rash until one day, by accident, she stopped eating the cinnamon.

Yet I knew something had to cause it. There is almost always a logical explanation for things in life. By keeping in my mind that in fact something had to be causing it, it forced me to continue trying to think of what the “thing” was.

I know that Cholinergic Urticaria is caused by something. At this point, I just don’t know what. Perhaps it is something hormone related. Perhaps there is an allergy that is causing us to do this, and we are completely unaware of it (just as my wife).

But there is no doubt that something is causing this. The second we find out what that “something” is, we can fix it just like my wife was fixed once we recognized the “something”. People don’t just up and get rashes, hives, or anything else for no reason. There is always something causing it. In my wife’s case, it was an allergen which she never really realized bothered her that much, and it was in food she was eating daily.

Perhaps in our case, it too is an allergen. Maybe it is something we eat every day, and we have no idea that this tiny ingredient is causing bad symptoms. Or maybe it is something in the environment such as pollen or dust mites, that is causing our system to go haywire. Or maybe there is something in the water, or an ingredient in something that is causing a delayed and peculiar allergic response. Or perhaps there is some type of virus or something altering our system.

In any event, I definitely know something is causing this, and I strongly believe that if we find that something and remove it from our bodies/environment, we can be cured forever. In my wife’s case, she was cured after about 2 weeks of absolutely no more cinnamon. In our case, maybe it will take 3-4 weeks or longer. But it should slowly creep away, until we no longer are bothered by the itching and prickling ever again. Slowly, we will just start to sweat when we get hot, and we will eventually realize we no longer have hives at all.

There are so many things that could be causing this, and that is perhaps the most frustrating thing. It could be diet, it could be environment, it could be hormonal, and so forth.

At this time, I don’t really think it is a genetic issue. The reason is that in most people it goes away after a period of time, and often stays gone. So to me it sounds like something gets out of whack, and then gets corrected (such as sun exposure/vitamin D, body stops being allergic to something, etc.).

Again, I have made several posts about my diet journeys so far, and they have definitely altered the level of my CU. I am going to attempt some more extreme diets soon, and eliminate some other foods that I suspect I have an allergy to.

Anyway, I thought I would post that today. Also, there is a great thread in the Cholinergic Urticaria forum recently by a member who has been able to really get some sweat, and suspects a cure (even if only temporary). So you may want to check that out.

I will keep everyone updated on any new diets when I try them.

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