Cholinergic Urticaria

Cold Urticaria in Winter?

by

Hi everyone,
My name is Emily, and I’ve been suffering from hives for about a year and a half. I have both cholinergic urticaria and cold urticaria. My hives seemingly disappeared over the summer but for an unknown reason have begun to resurface at a greater intensity than before.

Lately my cold hives have been a lot worse than my heat hives and my allergist prescribed an Epi-Pen incase I go into shock from the cold (thankfully I haven’t had to use it). It isn’t even that cold right now where I live but recently I’ve had some of the worst cold hives in my life which makes me very scared as to what the winter will bring.

I haven’t seen many people on this forum discuss cold-induced hives, and I was just wondering if anyone else can relate to this or if anyone has any tips or tricks on how to get through the coldest months of the year.

Thanks,

Emily

Comments

  2. Hey I’ve had cold urticaria and heat urticaria for about 6 years now , since it’s getting colder I have been running outside when it gets dark at around 10pm. Sometimes I run shirtless or with just a t shirt . I feel like getting used to the cold is helping my hives.

  3. I’ve not heard anyone on here speak of the cold hives. My son has the heat hives (CU), but my daughter, when growing up, would have her skin break out in hives if she had cold or pressure on her skin, like if she sat down, wearing shorts, on a cold, metal folding chair. The back of her legs would break out in hives. Or if you tickled her, wherever you put pressure, she would break out. When she was in her late teens, she did a triathlon, and when she plunged into the cold water, she had trouble breathing, and got disoriented. She has less hives now (she’s 24), but my son, (he’s 32), has had heat hives (CU) mildly for a few years, and in the last year, severely. He tried lots of stuff, but going off of sugar has been a bigger help than anything else. Medication/shots/etc did nothing for him.

  4. I am in the same boat.

    This is actually the first time seeing this blog. I only get symptoms in the cold weather too. It really sucks for me to because I love the winter. The main reason I look forward to summer is because the symptoms go away. When it is cold, even if I start to get nervous and my blood pressure rises I start to get bumps and itch all over. The main relief is going to the gym and work through the symptoms until i start to sweat. Once that happens, everything is back to normal. I have tried many suggestions with no luck. Been dealing with this for years, but only in the winter.