I have been battling this debilitating condition for the past few months, and it all started a few months after I moved to Texas. I moved to Texas from the island of Jamaica in August 2013, and only 3 months later my Cholinergic Urticaria started.
It started as just an annoying itch on my arms when I went outside, and then developed into me having a near death experience when I even get nervous thinking about a a date. I have been scouring the internet searching for ways to stop this thing, but nothing I tried worked until recently.
I started off trying to eliminate anything new to me since I moved here (a lot), and I eliminated anything that was different from my lifestyle was in Jamaica. I even imported Jamaican food…anyway, back to the topic.
It wasn’t until I was searching the internet one day that I randomly found an article talking about the chemical chloramine which is a mixture of chlorine and ammonia, none of which are good for you. I checked if there was chloramine in the local water system and, lo and behold, it was there. So I took it up upon myself to stop coming in contact with any tap water or any bottled water from municipal water sources.
After a week and a half, my symptoms are starting to clear up. I am not 100% cured or healed, but my symptoms seem to be subsiding. I am in college and I like to be active, but this condition and created a large dent in my ability to do anything physical, even SEX!!
Since I have tried my best to eliminate my contact with local water and chloramine, things have started to clear up. Normally if I went outside on one of these infamously hot 100+ degree texas days, I would instantly start itching, turning red, and have hives all over me (antihistamines were no help in my opinion, they just made it worse the next attack).
Now I am able to walk to school ride my bike at a faster than snail pace. I still get the tingles and a few small bumps on my wrists, but nothing too serious anymore. The downside is it is costing me a lot of money to be bathing the bottled spring water.
So do you think that this is a step forward in the help of treating Cholinergic Urticaria? I did more research and almost every state uses this chemical chloramine. It has even been banned in every European country, and it is not present in water in Jamaica.
From my research, I have found that it reacts with the urea and other chemicals in the sweat somehow.
-D. Mcleish
Hivesguy says
Thanks for sharing that post, D. Mcleish.
This topic has been mentioned on this site before: Chloromine cause cholinergic urticaria?
It is always possible that if someone does have an allergy to this, yes, I think it could worsen or even cause CU symptoms.
I have long advocated people get a good shower filter, and I use one by Culligan. It never cured my hives by itself, but it does help tremendously with keeping my skin less itchy from the chlorine.
I certainly hope your hives are improving.
Ellen Powell says
I co-founded People Concerned About Chloramine in Vermont and we documented around 300 people in my water district who had come down with skin, respiratory and/or digestive symptoms. After reading this I called Denise Johnson-Kula, president of Citizens Concerned About Chloramine (in the San Francisco Bay area). She has a background in chemistry. I’d suggest talking with her. You can find her number at chloramine.org, their website.
Niaz mohammad says
Hoping this day to be your last one with CU. Adieu CU and Antihistamines.
Dear Hivesguy
I have benefited from your site time and again regarding latest information about CU. Your dedication’, relentless efforts and empathy towards us is highly appreciated. I did not see any major breakthrough regarding treatment of CU over years which we were expecting from medical circles. I am participating and writing to you for the first time. I am 46, a college principal by profession and suffering from CU in the deadliest form since I was 16 .
Sir I want you to covey to all our friends that if they should start using DISTILLED WATER, simple pure water, simple H2O, and they could be free from CU. Distilled water is available in Scientific stores cheaper (in my country )than mineral water or you can get it through home_ made steaming apparatus. Avoid tap water or ordinary water in any form in tea, coffee, alcohol and cold drinks.
There may be two possible reasons as to why the use of distilled water can make us free from CU:
Distilled water has a great potential to dissolve toxic chemicals that cause CU, from our blood as compared to tap or mineral water which is more saturated.
There is some kind of chemical in the form of mineral or metal in ordinary water to which our bodies are sensitive. I have used some elements like sodium, calcium, magnesium, lead,iron,zinc within permissible limits solved in distilled water. None of them seem to be our enemy. The process is continuing.
I am not of the habit to jump to the conclusion and wanted to complete the study and test each chemical on my body and to produce analytic report. A mail to your site made by Mr. Ali who is so disappointed with his life compelled me to write to you pre maturely. For the last two months of the extreme summer season, for the first time in my 30 years history of CU, I am totally without antihistamines or any medication. Most important, I was free from CU for 40 days last year when I was in Mecca on Hajj , on only Water “ Zam Zam”.
Regards,
Niaz Mohammad,
Saidu sharif swat Pakistan.
Hivesguy says
Hello, Niaz.
Thank you very much for your kind words and for sharing your water experiment and how it has worked for you. I’m very happy to hear that it has brought you relief. Your experiments with distilled water do sound very interesting, and I certainly hope you come back to report on what you discovered when you are done experimenting.
At one point, I lived in an apartment with horrible water, which did make my skin and hives worse. I tried using distilled water a few days, but it didn’t seem to make my hives go away. However, I could see how it could help tremendously if a person was sensitive to the chemicals in it. I also advocate using a water filter to remove some of the chemicals.
Keep us posted, and thanks so much for sharing your experience with this.