Over the past 4 months, my cholinergic urticaria has manifested itself in full force. It used to be a mild itching sensation when breaking a sweat, but I think the extreme stress of my life lately has made it worse.
In the worst attacks, I feel intense pain and itching across my back, chest, inner thighs, and arms. In these moments, I am forced to stop what I am doing and brace myself/grit my teeth.
A small cluster of hives will appear on my torso but nowhere else. It does pass after about 4-5 minutes, but the pain is so bad it has the potential to seriously screw up my life. These attacks are triggered by heat or anxiety.
I am a little awkward when talking to people so it has happened at ridiculous times, like when someone called my name to ask me a question. I saw a dermatologist and he prescribed Zyrtec or Allegra 2x daily.
I am currently taking Zyrtec, and it seems to help with the mild ‘waves’ of hives, but serious attacks still happen. I am also taking 5-HTP to try and curb my anxiety.
I will try Allegra next, but I need to find a solution fast. I am about to start my final semester at university and will have a research position there. I can’t be kneeling over in pain in every class. I’ll update if anything changes.
-Dylan
John says
Dylan a new obvious method that I use is to throw an ice pack over it just for a minute and the pain is gone. I hate taking unnatural substances so a very natural healing aid.
Maria E Sauri says
I totally understand. I recently have had a second outbreak of hives.
The first time after doing the Zertec, Singular, Zantac, Benedril, Prednisone and even an epinephrine shot. I mentioned to the Dr. that I was exhausted all the time so he decided to run some blood work and check my thyroid and sure enough, I have an under active hypothyroid. No sooner than I started taking Synthroid all the hives went away.
Now 3 years later, out of nowhere boom!!! They started on my foot, then my thighs, stomach, hands and arms and they have been full blown hives. They start small then as the day goes by, they begin to spread and connect to other hives to form a Huge hive that hurts like hell. I’m going through some stress in life with soon being displaced from my job at the end of this month due to a company merger and so I’m job hunting and even considering to move. Are these hives due to stress??
Words can not describe the pain, burning and itching it is so bad. I have not been able to go to work because nothing is working. Zertec, Zantac, Singular, Benedril, Prednisone nothing works. Not even an epinephrine shot gives me relief. I even have them on my face, neck and eyelids. No sooner does one go away another one shows up. My doctor is clueless. Just had some blood taken to recheck my thyroid, and also checking for lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, CBC, antinuclear antibodies, and CMP.
Lord…..something’s gotta give.
Wishing everyone with hives relief!!
Maria
kimmy says
I was told that never take medicines that contain steroid. .. never … never… It could go wrong for long period time..
Anonymous says
I have had Cholinergic Urticaria for 20 years and I have learnt a lot about it over that time.
I started getting it in my late teens and I found that spray deodorant was aggravating it significantly, I switched to non-alcohol roll on which helped to reduce symptoms greatly.
I am lucky in that I have a mild version of the condition that has got better with age and is helped by eliminating certain triggers. I don’t tend to suffer with it in the summer as I sweat more which seems to prevent the redness/itchiness. In the winter is when it affects me more and I find the following does help a lot:
* Reduce alcohol intake – after a heavy night out, the next morning I can feel my skin is more red and itchy.
* Reduce caffeine – Still not 100% sure on this but I don’t drink much coffee anyway.
* Use sensitive shower gels and other hygiene products, don’t use anything that will dry the skin.
* Drink plenty of water, I find that if I don’t drink enough water then I am not able to sweat very easy which causes the usual symptoms.
* Regular exercise – this is the key thing, you must exercise and sweat as much as possible, this unclogs the pores and regular easier sweating prevents an outbreak. Using a sauna or steam room is also a good method.
Personally Antihistamines never really worked for me, I tried a few which would work for a few days but then I would seem to build up a tolerance to them.
I am currently suffering with it a little bit at the moment due to the cold weather and central heating drying my skin out, but I need to up my effort in the gym and sweat more which I know will help.
Since reading this site I am going to stop using my anti-antiperspirant deodorant for while to see if this helps, my symptoms always show when I am getting hot but don’t sweat when I feel I should be, so hopefully this will help.