Hello all,
I am a 21-year-old male who has been fighting this condition ever since I stopped playing intense sessions of basketball daily at the age of 18. I am glad to be sharing you my method with the hopes that it can help other sufferers.
I have been doing experiments weekly to see how I can reduce the pain/redness of an attack.
As most of you already know, working out daily and breaking a sweat keeps the hives at bay for around 24 hours for some of us suffering with cholinergic urticaria (could be less if your diet is full of salt and processed junk).
Anyway, most of you, like myself, probably don’t have time to exercise daily or can’t break a sweat without going through extreme pain. Therefore, I am going to show you a method that I use daily and has been working for me for around a month since first trying it. The method takes around 5-10 mins and it works best first thing in the morning so that I can get relief throughout the day. For even better results, I combine this method with intermittent fasting (Google it, its also very healthy for your body). You don’t need any equipment for this. However, you always need to talk to a doctor before attempting to exercise or fast, as it may not be safe for everyone (especially those with anaphylaxis).
The method I use:
Step 1: I wake up in the morning, and I don’t take a shower just yet! I wear as much clothes as possible. I wear my thick pajamas, with a thick robe (with a hoodie), and a pair of socks. The more clothes the better!
Note: The trick is that I get myself as warm as possible. The warmer I make my body, the less painful it is.
Step 2: I pick a room and close all windows and the door, turn off the air conditioning/fan. I basically turn off anything that is cooling the room down. If I have time, I blast the heater and heat up the room as much as I can.
By this point, I’m dressed with a good thick layer of clothing and nothing is cooling my body/room down. I sometimes start to feel an attack coming (pricking sensation), and to stop it from getting more painful, I do the next step quickly. I don’t check my Facebook and email just yet or else I will experience a full-blown attack, which we all know sucks bad.
Step 3. Here comes the magic method. I get into the push up position (If you can’t do push ups, then I suggest doing knee push ups until you are strong enough to do normal push ups.)
The key is that I start doing push ups as SLOWLY AS I POSSIBLY CAN ON THE WAY DOWN. Doing them quickly will not show the results I want. I go down SLOWLY (it takes me 4-5 seconds to get the bottom position). Once I get to the bottom position, I hold for a few seconds and explode back up as fast as I can, and repeat for as many times as you can. I’m going to tell you again because its extremely important: WHEN I PERFORMING THE PUSH UPS, I GO DOWN AS SLOW AS I POSSIBLY CAN.
Here is a video that shows how it should be done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snCvJkrnI6M
After the first push up, I will feel blood pumping all over my body, and my face will become RED. After the second, my body temperature will go up even more, I will feel very hot, BUT very little prickly pain from the hives.
After 3 or 4 push ups from the method above, my face will be red, blood will be flowing throughout my body. I begin feeling very hot but once again no significant pain.
I do as many as I possibly can in my first set. I consider myself fit, so I can do about 10 (on a good day).
When I take a look at the mirror, I feel hot and my face is usually red. I swipe my palm across my forehead, and if I feel a little moisture (sweat) then that’s it–I’m done! I can have relief for the whole day, not having to worry about an attack. However, I need to do around 3 sets of as much as I can before I feel sweat on my forehead. And believe me, I can barely sweat, so 3 sets is usually all it takes.
Notice how during the sets of these SLOW push-ups, I barely felt any pain whatsoever. I believe because of how rapidly I raised my body temperature and got blood flowing to near my skin so quickly that the ‘attack’ was either skipped completely or went by so fast that I didn’t even notice.
Now its reward time.
I treat myself with a nice hot shower, and I don’t worry about an attack in the shower. In fact, the shower actually further helps me sweat, which is a bonus.
After the shower, I dress up in whatever I want to get ymy pain-free day started.
Optimal: I actually wear thermal pants or leggings (yes you can also get mens) under my jeans. This actually keeps my body temperature elevated through the day which keeps the attack away for the whole day, and it allow me to sweat like a normal person would. Although you don’t need to do this if you don’t want to. I just like to do it.
Before commenting saying this doesn’t work, please try it exactly as I told you in the steps above, then comment below and I will try to help as much as I can. And always talk to a doctor before attempting any exercise, as exercise is not safe for those with anaphylaxis.
Thanks and good luck,
Abdul
Hivesguy says
Thanks so much for taking the time to share that extensive routine with everyone, Abdul. I’m glad to hear this is providing you with relief, and I hope it continues to give you a better quality of life. I’m sure many people will find it interesting to read and very useful.
Abdul says
Hey man, Thanks for editing it and making it more readable to the visitors. I hope it does help some one at least.
Hivesguy says
You’re welcome. You’re a good writer, and I know that lengthy articles take time to write. I appreciate the time you took to share that with other sufferers. I’m sure a lot of people will gain some valuable insight from it.
John says
Great observation, Abdul! You have a scientific mind! Your experience confirms similar observations of others. Many of us with CU can be grateful if we have this same ebb and flow in symptoms. At least we are not afflicted 24 hours a day and we know it will pass. If we are accepting our suffering is less, but of course it is good to be mindful and to set in place a discipline such as Ben has found to be even more complete solution. We can hypothesize that whatever it is that is in our bodies that is creating the immune reaction reaches a certain level and when the cholinergic events take place it perhaps makes these antigens more visible and allows us to clean them up. Perhaps the increased permeability of our cells when we warm up could be an explanation. Who knows? But by taking charge of when this happens you have successfully helped manage and diminish your suffering for the day, and that is a good feeling. Perhaps the morning timing has something to do with hormone levels fluctuating during the day which also mediate the intensity of the reaction? Let’s face it. We generally are not as quick and reactive in the morning. Now, as Ben suggests, 95% of the cure is finding what we are ingesting that causes the problem. I have been dealing with CU for 40 years, and ultimately it has died down a good bit, but my diet is more simple these days too. I have hardly any symptoms in the summer, but I use AC judiciously. When I am in the tropics during winter I have no symptoms either, but in any case, like Ben I eat mostly white rice and vegetables. My recent flare ups seem to be associated with cooler weather and use of even small amounts of caffeine, fish or dairy. Since I cut those out and the fall weather has warmed I am back to hives free. Thanks for sharing, Abdul. Very interesting.
Abdul says
No problem John, I really hope doctors dermatologists conduct some sort of research towards finding the cause of this horrible ‘condition’, I have noticed that people who don’t suffer from it don’t understand how painful and embarrassing it can be. “How bad can it be”, “stop whining, its just a rash”, “why cant you help me do garden work outside?” Its really hard to explain to non-sufferers but thank goodness we have a well established community of sufferers here, who are all together in this.
AD says
Yes! Having this forum is so important!
Meg says
Hello. Thank you for sharing Abdul..i will start trying what you said works for you. I have suffered to the point that my lifestyle has changed. i can no longer dance, or go hiking, or run and play with my pups without the intense pain!! I have switched to an organic soap. will keep you posted. I am glad that this forum is available. For the longest i thought i was alone in this. 🙂
Abdul says
No problem Meg, have you tried using sweat therapy by going to the gym every morning and exercising intensely until you sweat? This also really helped me as i realised my condition only started once i quit playing basketball everyday
AD says
Recently I have read two posts that claimed success after eliminating gluten. I’m going to try that route, but I’d like to know if there are a significant number of people on this forum who have found success after giving up gluten.
Hivesguy says
I don’t keep track of the exact numbers, but I’d say at least 5-15 different people have confirmed that diet modification of some kind (removing dairy, gluten, etc.) has helped them tremendously. Others have reported that it didn’t help them that much. However, this site doesn’t get a lot of comments, so it’s always difficult to gauge.
Given the fact that there are many gluten-free alternatives these days, it really isn’t that bad to cut it out for a while. However, I’d also caution that–at least in my case–gluten may not be the only thing making a person’s hives reactive. Perhaps you could cut out one food and see if you notice a small improvement. If so, work to cut out other high allergen foods. Always talk to a doctor or nutritionist before making extreme or long-term diet changes, though.
Saurabh says
Hello Abdul & Everyone.
I am having CU since last 6-7 months and is ONLY heat induced( hot room,hot weather, any form of exercise for more than 30 min approx) so please advise If I try Abdul approach it’ll do more harm than good to me!! Things that help me is to stay in colder surrounding. Also can someone suggest me that does naturopathy helps to cure CU.
Hivesguy says
The only “naturopathy” I can recommend is to examine your diet and environment for potential allergic responses. Regarding exercise/sweat therapy, I don’t recommend it if you have severe reactions. This is something you need to discuss with a doctor before trying, and if you do it, I’d recommend having an Epi-Pen.