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

It has been a little while since I have posted on the cholinergic urticaria blog, so I thought I would write a quick update post on a few things. First and foremost, I hope everyone had a great holiday season, and I hope 2010 brings some awesome things to us all.

I like to constantly examine my life and analyze it so that I can learn as much from it as I can. My wife and I had a year of big ups and big downs in 2009. Here is a quick recap of those:

Positive things that happened to me in 2009:

• My wife Graduated from Nursing School with her RN-BSN degree (a big dream come true)
• My wife got a job immediately after graduation (which is great considering the state of the economy)
• We bought our first house which was a dream come true (something I have wanted for years) and we love it
• We grew many more members on the forum of this site, and some of my other websites have grown in terms of income and traffic
• I feel like I have matured and grown as an individual
• I have decided to change my career path/business strategy slightly after agonizing and stressing for the last year, which I hope works out well

Negative things that happened to me in 2009:

• My wife’s younger sister passed away, which basically devastated the entire family, and we (my wife especially) still struggle with it.
• My Cholinergic Urticaria didn’t go away, which is something I had hoped for.

So there are the big highlights. Some big dreams came true, and some big tragedies also happened. That’s life I guess. But overall it was a good year considering.

My Plans and Hopes for 2010:

I am optimistic about 2010, and I feel like I have a fresh start in life or something. I now have my house, my wife is done with school, and I am going to be experimenting with different career/business ideas. I hope and pray it turns out to be a good year. My resolutions are as follows:

• Work extremely hard on “finding my purpose” in terms of my career, and pray it works out well and is successful
• Get in better shape and exercise more
• Try to eat healthy, but I will allow for the occasional treats
• Work really hard on trying to be happy with what I’ve got, and who I am. This is something I struggle with as I am a perfectionist and when I feel I am not doing well in an area in my life, I worry a lot about it. Hopefully I can just be more positive in this regard and accept life for what it is, while working hard and striving for happiness in all areas.
• Re-read the bible, and continue my studies in religion and life

How My Hives Have Been Doing, and How My Thinking Has Changed

My hives have still been here of course, and they are about the same in terms of intensity/frequency. I do find relief most of the time in my house because we don’t turn the thermostat on at all, and only use space heaters when we need them (and try to only run them as short of length as possible).

This saves us so much money on electricity (our previous one was $42, and our most recent was $70–not bad for a 3 bedroom house with a basement too). It also means that in rooms where we don’t have the heaters, it has gotten as cool as 40 degrees. But I enjoy it and just put a sweater on or something, and use my space heater to ensure I don’t get too cold.

It has also been a huge help that my wife basically has taken over many tasks that used to cause me a hives reaction. Like returning an item to walmart, my wife does that for me. She has also took postal packages for me when needed, even done shopping for me, going in to Subway and ordering our subs, and so forth.  I am very appreciative of that fact, because it has helped me avoid many potential hives attacks and frustrations. In fact, it has been a while now since having hives in public due to this fact.

I have also pondered my hives a lot, and my thinking has changed a lot on cholinergic urticaria as of recent. It is funny because I really went through a process, and I will continue to progress through this situation. Like people say you have a process when you know you are going to die (like denial, anger, fear, acceptance, etc.) My hives have played out in a similar way:

• First I was confused and frustrated as to why my body was getting this tingling/itching sensation. I was really confused, had no idea what was happening to me, which was scary. I thought for a time I might be dying or have cancer or something. It didn’t help that the doctors didn’t know what it was either, which really freaked me out.
• Then, over the years, that confusion settled down once I realized I wasn’t alone, and my condition had a name, and didn’t appear to be fatal. That helped a lot. The confusion over what I had, however, soon was replaced with anger and a deeper confusion. I began asking, “why me?,” and more importantly, “what the heck is causing this cholinergic urticaria, and what can I do to treat it?”
• This then led to a period where I logically thought, “I know what condition this is, and I know something must be causing this, so what?” At that point I tortured my mind day and night trying to find a practical solution to curing the cholinergic urticaria symptoms. I did everything from putting myself through difficult diet regimens and even fasting, experimenting with antihistamines, to working out, to exposing myself to the sun, to vitamin supplementation, anti-yeast medication,  and more. None of this seemed to do the trick, which led to even more frustration and feelings of failure and hopelessness.
• At this point, I think that I am finally in the “acceptance” phase. Given all of the research, experiments, and more, I have finally realized this fact about cholinergic urticaria: I have it, and w hile I don’t know everything about it, I must live with it the best I can because there is basically nothing I can reasonably do about it. At this point, I have no other option than to simply, “live with it, and get over it.” I know that I may have this off and on during the majority of my life (although I try to remain positive that it will go away soon for good). I also know that there is basically nothing I can do in terms of medication, unless I do heavy duty drugs (such as steroids), of which I don’t want the side effects that come along with it.  But I am no longer going to put myself through this mental thing that I can somehow cure it. I have given it my best shot, and done everything I reasonably can.

Even if they can find out the exact mechanisms and cause of cholinergic urticaria, I honestly don’t think they would be able to do anything about it without giving some heavy medications that could potentially mess up other things in the body. So that is how my thinking has changed over the years since living with this condition. I hate the hives, but I deal with it. It has messed up my life in many ways and has limited what I am able to do even on a daily basis, but whining about it doesn’t solve anything either. And in the end, I need to be thankful for what I have, and learn to deal with those things I don’t have (like perfect health).

In any event, that is a quick update on some of my thoughts, and a quick recap of the year. I hope you all have a slammin’ 2010, and many of your dreams come true. I also hope and pray this is the year that our hives may mysteriously disappear for good. Stay positive, keep fighting, and learn to manage your hives as best as possible (both mentally and physically).  Till next post,

Ben (HivesGuy)

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Hello Everyone!

Well as you know, I am experimenting to see if there is any possible connection with food allergies to Cholinergic Urticaria (hives). Basically I just want to rule out food allergies as a possible cause. We I wanted to give an update on the situation that happened over the past couple of days.

First, you all know I have faithfully been avoiding gluten & dairy products, since that is the main suspected food allergens. I also recently made a gluten free pizza as you can see from an earlier post.

The pizza turned out great, and tasted pretty good as well. Everything was great, and I was thinking, “WOW, this gluten free/milk free diet isn’t bad at all.”  Yeah, I thought that alright, until several hours later when that pizza had digested!!!

I am not trying to gross anyone out here, but I haven’t had that kind of stomach pain since cutting out milk/gluten several weeks ago. I was DOG SICK all night. I had BAD stomach cramps, bloating, gas, and you guessed it, severe diarrhea (sorry for the details). I stayed in bed for the rest of the night. My wife ate the exact same thing, and only had a little gas. So I know that something in those ingredients messed me up, and my wife doesn’t have a problem with whatever I have a problem with in those ingredients)!

So I was kind of in shock about the situation, because all the ingredients specifically listed that they did not contain dairy OR gluten! So I thought to myself…Okay, perhaps I have an issue with Soy or one of the other ingredients as well (the “cheese” was soy based, and the pizza sauce also had soybean ingredients).

So the next day (which was yesterday July 27th), we made another couple of pizzas (I was finally feeling a little better). This time, I didn’t add the “soy” cheese topping to mine, and instead just had the crust with pizza sauce & pepperoni to see if it would mess me up again without the cheese. And the same thing happened, only not near as severe as the day before (again my wife was fine & actually ate the cheese again on her pizza). I once again had bad gas, bloating, and some cramps (although not really diarrhea this time).

Not only that, after having my stomach all messed (BADLY) all weekend, I have now noticed an increase in my cholinergic urticaria sensitivity today. I just walked outside, and BAM, started getting a little prickly. As you know, I have had a pretty good period of less reactive hives before this incident. My wife & I suspect it is linked to the food/digestion problem. I was doing much better, the hives not near as severe, and my stomach was feeling great.

Then, within the same time period as my stomach getting all crazy, bam, the hives go up a notch in intensity right along with it. I think I am starting to see a pattern here!!

So I looked at all the ingredients on the labels & here they are:

For the Pizza Crust Mix: Whole grain brown rice flour, potato starch, whole grain millet flour, whole grain sorghum flour, tapioca flour, potato flour, evaporated cane juice, Xantham gum, active dry yeast, sea salt, guar gum.

For the Hormel Pepperoni: Pork, beef, salt, contains 2% or less water, dextrose, spices, lactic acid starter culture (not derived from milk), oleoresin of paprika, garlic powder, sodium nitrate, bha, bht, citric acid.

For the Pizza Sauce: Tomato puree (water, tomato paste), soybean oil, salt, spices, parsley, natural flavors (contains soybeans).

So when I ate it with the soy cheese, it really messed me up. When I ate it without the soy cheese, it still messed me up, but not as bad.

So I am just absolutely confused right now about what is going on! So do I have to watch out for soy now as well? Or did some other potential allergen mess me up such as the Xantham gum, or the yeast, or preservative?? It seems that it might have been the soy since that is what really messed me up, and since I still got a dose of it from the pizza sauce ingredients when I ate the second pizza without the soy cheese??

Conclusion: I am still going strong on the gluten free/milk free diet. However, I am starting to realize that if something messes up my stomach that bad, there is a good chance I have some sort of allergy or intolerance to it, and I need to avoid it. It is NOT natural to get cramps that badly, and I KNOW it was from something in that food that messed up my stomach!

An Even Stricter Diet??

Therefore, I have a new plan. I am going to eat up the remaining food I have that is gluten free/milk free over the next few days. Then, I am strongly considering going on a pretty serious elimination diet. I will keep everyone posted when/if I do it. An elimination diet is where you restrict all foods that contain any possible main allergen, and eat as natural & plain as possible. Then you see if the allergies/problems go away.

I am talking plain rice, a few plain veggies, and perhaps some plain sugars (such as honey), and maybe plain meat (without any preservatives, etc.) if I can find it. I would cut out the cereal, snacks, etc. It would be very hard to follow that diet, and I would probably do it for at least 2-4 weeks to see the results. If I don’t see anything after that period of time, then I have no idea! I know my stomach will be better on this diet, because it always feels really good when I eat simple foods like rice & veggies, and even feels good now that I haven’t ate more pizza. But the question is will it help/cure the cholinergic urticaria?

I have to know 100% in my mind whether or not foods or ingredients in my diet is causing this!! Maybe it is related to food, maybe it isn’t? Or Maybe it is multiple foods allergies or multiple things causing this?? I know CU has its normal ups & downs and cycles of intensity, but it seems every time I start to get intense, I can pinpoint a severe stomach episode, or rash on my body that happens right along, or just before it.

If I go on this very restrictive diet, and still have the hives after another 2-3 weeks more on it, then I will have to assume that the diet is not the cause. But I still suspect my diet is somehow link (and my wife does as well).

Only time will tell….

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