Hey everyone, so I’m 18 years old and I recently developed what I think is cholinergic urticaria. I’m not completely sure. I got it around mid November in 2017. So this is a question to anybody who can possibly help me.
So these are my current symptoms: when I get hot, take hot showers, and feel an emotion aggressively (get really happy, sad, excited, scared), I get stinging on my upper body followed with itching on my neck and my scalp. I then get small red bumps on my arms, but they don’t happen on my hands though.
I used to get hives on my chest but I don’t know if it was hives cause it NEVER itched! And I only got them after I took a shower. Like literally only when I took a shower I would get these red flares and there weren’t any bumps either. So these are the symptoms that I do get.
But here’s the thing. After I started getting this, I got a shower filter to see if it would help. It helped a lot, and my flare ups went away. And sometimes I would get them but I know it happened because of my shampoo. For the last 3 years I’ve been shampooing almost every day, like not 2-3 times per week, but everyday. Which I know is bad and I think maybe that’s what effected this. Because the days I shower without shampooing my hair, I get absolutely no flare ups on my chest.
And I recall one time when I was sick for like 2 days, I didn’t shower because I couldn’t get out the bed. I was also taking Vitamin C pills, when I tried to exercise to see if I would get the symptoms I didn’t get them. I didn’t feel itchy or have the prickly feeling but when I showered that night, the following day I slowly started getting the symptoms back. But it came back slowly, it took 2-3 days for it completely come back(I showered with shampoo those days). This was early December.
So where am I now? I’ve been on a elimination diet. I was a vegetarian my whole life (no sea food also). But as of now, I’m Vegan. I only consume vegetables (no nightshades), fruits and I only eat sweet potatoes and rice every day. Also my rice is mixed with turmeric, so it’s cooked in a special way.
So I have a regular intake of turmeric as well. But so here’s the thing, 2 years ago I had constipation problems, like I would go but I always felt like I wasn’t completely finished. I got very paranoid cause I would spend more time than usual in the washroom, so I booked an appointment with my family doctor. He told me I might have lactose intolerance and had me take Metamucil, which helped a lot, but I only took it for a 2 months cause my situation got better by itself (and I didn’t have any problem defecating).
This was when around 2016. The one thing I noticed was that when I ate pizza, I had constipation for sure, and I ate pizza like 3-4 times in a span of 2 weeks in the month of October(2017). Not slices but a whole medium pizza by myself. I also ate cereal with milk in a high quantity as well. My washroom situation would go back and forth from diarrhea to constipation and vice versa. This is all before I got CU. I ate dirty, I mean like dirty the month of October.
I hardly drank pop (quit when I was 15), but around October I drank pop twice. I know it isn’t a big deal but it could have contributed a bit by dehydrating my body. I was also stressed cause of studies and didn’t drink a lot of water either. My diet would consist of pizza, Taco Bell, Subway, and I ate a lot chocolate. Like 4 small Kit Kat bars a day.
I’m a skinny dude by the way but around November of last year I felt like I gained weight (3 pounds).
Even writing all of this points to the simple fact that I may have some gut related issue that caused this, and maybe it’s outputting these symptoms that similar to those of cholinergic urticaria. But I need a second opinion to help me clarify or confirm what this issue is. Also I went for a blood test and thyroid check up, all came out negative.
So I’m now questioning myself what I may have and I’m not taking antihistamines, as I know they won’t help me, same with steroids or any injections.
-Kunal
Anonymous says
Antihistamines kind of help and I noticed that taking showers will increase the chances of flare ups. It might have to due with the fact that you’re taking hot showers, mixing in chemicals (shampoo) and chemicals in the water pipes.