My Cholinergic Urticaria Success Story

I’ve needed to come back here for the past 2 years or so to share my success story, and I’ve only remembered now as a close friend just started getting hives. Roughly two years or so ago I suffered from a very bad case of cholinergic urticaria. I tried several medications from the doctors such as antihistamines, corticosteroids etc. but nothing really seemed to work. They pretty much told me I had to try live around it. I wasn’t able to live normally.

Whenever I would get nervous, have a shower, or go out in the sun, I’d break out with thousands of burning hives all over my body. It was the worst feeling in the world. It lead to me having really bad social anxiety which I have only recently fully recovered from.

After a few weeks of being depressed and trying to find my way living around it, I decided to tackle it head on. I by no way recommend this way, but it worked for me and now I am enjoying life with no signs of any hives coming back.

I started by trying to force myself to sweet by exercising doing jump rope. That would not induce the hives as much as I wanted so I tried something else. I started putting my whole body under my duvet cover and using a hot blow dryer under my duvet. This would cause me to break out really bad. I’d reach the point where they couldn’t get any worse so I’d go out the front yard and start exercising.

I’d do push ups, star jumps and skipping for a total of around 10 minutes. I did this 2-3 times a day. On about day 4 I was extremely excited. I noticed sweat on my forehead after my exercise. This motivated me to keep doing it. On day 5 my friend came around and asked me to go to the gym, I was very hesitant, and I hadn’t told him about my problem.

I went and induced my hives under my blanket and put on track pants and a long sleeve shirt to hide my hives.We then went to the gym where he showed me a leg work out. I didn’t sweat much at all. The next day I decided to go again, where we did a shoulder workout.

There was still a lot of hives around my joints but I could feel wetness on my forearms. I was so relieved that what I was doing might be actually working. I decided to then jump on the treadmill, I cranked it up to level 11 and started running. Every minute I could feel myself sweat more and more. At around 10 minutes I was drenched in sweat, It was running all down my face and my shirt was soaked. I felt so free and like I had my life back.

Since then for the last 2 years I’ve always been to the gym for 4-5 times a week. I stay really hydrated, and make sure I build up a good sweat when I go to the gym.

-Junior