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

In a recent post, I took some pictures of some shower items to show what hard water residue pictures looked like. If you check those out, then you will see that it leaves a very thick white residue on anything it touches (including your skin).

This film of “gunk” is very sticky, and is extremely difficult to wash off of anything. My wife and I are clean people, and when we take showers it isn’t like we are filthy or something. Yet in no time gunk builds up on our sinks and tub due to the extraordinary hard water.

The dissolved minerals in hard water bind to almost any surface it touches, and to remove it you have to scrub extremely hard and buy cleaners that deal with the dissolved minerals.

Anyway, I wanted to take another picture to just display how hard the water is here. This is from the side of my shower. Keep in mind a couple of things before you even look at this picture:

1. This is just the side of the shower, most of the water runs off into the drain. This is just a residue only of the side, which shows just how insanely hard the water is here.
2. We clean our tub regularly (at least 1 per month or so), and we are never “filthy.” It isn’t like we get in the tub covered in mud or something.

Anyway, here is what the side of the tub looks like. The tub is white, and has hard water (whitish) residue on it:

Hard water

So just to illustrate how fast the water builds up (just on the side where the water barely touches), I took a scrap piece of wood I had lying around. I then took the wood, and scraped from the bottom to the top of this small side part. Here is what it looked like:

Hard Water Residue

Yuk! No folks, that isn’t cocaine, sugar, or even salt. It is nasty gunk in the water supply. And let me remind you, I have CITY water (not a well). This is just regular tap water from the city!!!

The only good news is that I have a new business idea: I can buy some empty capsules, and start a calcium/magnesium supplement business by scraping my shower!! Yah! (just kidding of course)

Not only does it leave this white powdery residue when it dries, but it also leaves a brownish colored residue as well (I am assuming probably iron deposits). On top of that, there is this black “sludge” that always forms in the drain.

I know this because my wife has extremely long hair, and every month or two I have to remove it from the drain in the tub to prevent it from clogging. And I always see this black sludge material, which I am assuming is probably some type of magnesium or manganese deposit.

Not only that, but we have to replace our shower curtain almost monthly, because the water is so hard and sticky, that mold starts to form on the shower curtain very quickly, even when cleaning it with bleach every month.

To clean this beast, I usually get some shower gel stuff with bleach, let it sit for an hour or two, and then scrub it and scrub it until it finally gets clean. Needless to say, I don’t exercise on that day…

Is This Water Great for Cholinergic Urticaria and Eczema Conditions?

Okay, just a little common sense here…does anyone actually think this water could HELP cholinergic urticaria, or eczema type conditions? My water has at least the following known chemicals in it:

1. Calcium
2. Magnesium (or manganese)
3. Chlorine (added by city)
4. Fluoride (added by city)
5. Possibly Iron
6. Who knows what other contaminants/minerals

I don’t see how all of these chemicals can help cholinergic urticaria or eczema. In fact, it is quite obvious to me that the water is going to aggravate or inflame any conditions with the skin (including psoriasis, or any type of rash/hives).

At the very least, hard water like this would clog pores and dry the skin. At the worst, this hard water could inflame or cause eczema, skin rashes, and potentially even Cholinergic Urticaria or allergic reactions.

Don’t get me wrong, I do realize that minerals are sometimes found naturally dissolved in water supplies like rivers, lakes, etc. But I honestly can’t see how even a river can be as bad as my water here!

Oh yeah, and this reminds me: When my wife and I moved in we purchased a small aquarium. We filled it with this crazy water, and the fish died within days. I now realize I should have used distilled water. I feel so sorry for those fish! I wouldn’t splash this nasty water on my worst enemy.

And after considering how my hives went crazy after I moved here, and how I developed terrible eczema/dermatitis type rashes like I have never developed before in my life, I think it is safe to say this water has some involvement with my skin problems.

So while I have no idea whether or not softer water will cure cholinergic urticaria (it may, it may not), I am fairly confident that it will at least make my skin more comfortable, and help cut down on skin irritation.Worst case scenario, I won’t have to scrub the tub as hard and my skin will feel softer. Best case scenario: It will cure my hives and prevent any eczema rashes from forming.

I Am Scrubbing My Skin Tomorrow and Using Distilled Water Again

In my last post, I talked about how I have been using distilled water to bathe every few days. I also talked about the white gunk my wife was able to get from my skin. It did it right after the shower, while my skin was moist. A person also replied on the forum and noticed this same gunk on their skin as well.

Anyway, I have purchased more jugs of distilled water, and also a nice little scrub brush. Here it is:

Loofah Scrub

My wife is going to scrub me down, and trust me, it will be painful. Hopefully I will get as much of this gunk as I can off my skin. I know that in the eczema water softener trials, most people seen an improvement within 2-3 weeks. After a few months the change was incredible.

So I know this is going to be a long process, but I am definitely going to be experimenting with it over the next 1-2 months. Time will tell if it helps. I still think an actual water softener will be even better, as it is hard to really scrub using heated jug water.

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Hello Everyone!

My Cholinergic Urticaria  (Heat Hives) Has Gotten Worse

Once again, after a crappy diet of mine over the past 2-3 weeks, I am suffering with some new eczema rashes, and way more intense Cholinergic Urticaria symptoms. This all started about 2-3 weeks ago. As most of you know, I have been suffering from a lot of allergy symptoms over the past year. I have had red itchy bumps on my skin, random itchy patches of skin, and stomach issues on occasion. They all come & go, and my diet has been linked for sure to these rashes, bumps, etc.

I have repeatedly noticed during my many diet attempts over the past year that when I eat really organic & healthy, my hives get way better, all rashes clear up,  and my stomach/digestion problems are solved. The hives have never fully been cured by diet alone, but they have significantly improved while on the diet.  Then, just like clockwork, when I eat a lot of processed foods, and foods with any milk, wheat, oats, or other ingredients, it all comes back. I get itchy rashes, and the hives go through the roof in intensity.

I have eaten milk free foods still, but have allowed wheat on occasion, and even ate a few fast food meals over the past 2 weeks. This all came as a result of my wife’s graduation, and other events over the past month that has placed me in a difficult situation of eating foods that I know give me trouble. So I ate foods I know give me trouble with probiotics, hoping it would balance it out.

I have posted about this several times over the past year of this whole diet experience. I have also speculated in the past that they hives may go away on a prolonged diet of organic foods, and combining that with avoidance of known food allergies/intolerances. I have never been able to fully test this theory to a level I am satisfied with, as I have only made it as long as a month or two on the diet–and at that point I either had no will power left to eat healthy, or it was getting too expensive to eat organic. But I suspect it could really help, if not cure, cholinergic urticaria doing so for several months. I won’t lie, it takes an incredible amount of will power to eat only fruits, veggies, and lean meat for a long time.

But anyway, I plan to clean up my diet for a while again. I could barely sleep for the last 2 nights because my skin is so “icky” feeling. It is so sensitive right now, and when I feel the covers touch my skin it just gives me this really light sensation like I am getting chill bumps all over or something. Add that to the fact that I am practically breaking out in hives over the slightest thing, and that is reason enough for me to get the diet back on track for a while.

Allergy Tests Are Way Too Expensive…I’ll Pass For Now

I was talking to my mother on the phone about the allergy test she had about 2 years ago. She was reading me some of the results, and notably, she was allergic to dust mites, milk, citrus, peanuts, oats, onions, and more. I had a lot of known food issues that matched her known allergies. I suppose allergies probably have a genetic aspect to them, so I feel like her test would probably be somewhat similar in comparison, with many allergens over-lapping.

So I decided that so many people on the forum have had an allergy test, and it would be somewhat beneficial to know some of my allergens so I could avoid them for sure. So my mother called up the allergy place she went to a couple of years ago, and inquired about the cost of having a testing performed.

I literally could not believe how much they said…$2,000! Yep, that is right, two thousand bucks to prick your back & give a detailed test result. Holy Moly! I am getting medical insurance within the next month or two (my wife’s benefits finally kick in), but there is still a deductible with that ($500), plus I think we have to pay 20%. So that is still several hundred dollars…yikes!

So I have decided that i am just going to pass on that for now, and possibly forever. Instead, I am going to seek cheap/free ways of finding food allergies by carefully paying attention to my diet, skin, rashes, etc. I will eliminate known food allergies, and then work from there & monitor everything over the course of the next few weeks. I still can’t believe $2,000!! The medical field is robbing people blind these days apparently. Especially since all it does is suggest some things you may be allergic to. It doesn’t even cover every known allergy! Sheesh!

Update on Probiotics Supplements

I have stopped taking the probiotics for my digestion. It didn’t have any effect on the hives at all. It maybe helped my digestion a bit, but nothing major. So I will not continue to take them at this point (unless I eat something bad, which I plan to avoid at this point).

There are some reports that it does help some people with eczema or digestion issues, so it is worth a shot for anyone suffering from that. But it didn’t work that well for me.

Update on Wife’s Rash/Eczema/Dermatitis

I think I have figured out what was causing my wife’s rash. As I mentioned in my last post or two, she started getting these little red spots that were itchy on her back, arms, and upper chest.

So I was racking my brain trying to figure what caused this with her. I finally figured out that within the last month, she has switched from regular waffles to these waffles with cinnamon in them. She also started eating this applesauce with cinnamon in it as well over the past month.

So I pointed this out to her, and reminded her how she is allergic to cinnamon. Whenever she chews gum with cinnamon in it (like Big Red), or uses cinnamon toothpaste, she will get a big red area when the cinnamon product touches her skin (such as around her mouth).

So I think that is probably what is causing her rash, and hopefully it will clear up by the end of the week. It did give her an idea of what it feels like to suffer with itchiness (she normally has flawless skin). But a little itchy rash is still nothing compared to my Urticaria Cholinergic.

Conclusion: Cleaning Up the Diet for a While

So I just wanted to give a few updates on the allergy test thing, talk about the hives, etc. I will definitely clean up my diet majorly over the next week or two, and I suspect the rashes/hives will improve.

I still can’t wait to get a house within the next few months. Then, I can really eat organic, remove dust mites, filter the water, etc. I expect I will really be able to beat this hives thing!

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