Cholinergic Urticaria

My CU is gone! Possible Cure

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Okay I don’t want anyone getting their hope up too high. I’m not even sure if this medicine is even the reason why my CU got much weaker these days. I still feel it sometime but it doesn’t hurt and doesn’t bother me.

First off, I want to mention that I’ve been losing a lot of weight. I was about 195 pounds when I got CU, and now I am 140 pounds. Also I’ve been using the sauna treatment to sweat everyday, so I used to wake up 2 hours earlier everyday so that I can use the treatment. When I went to my doctor last time, he prescribed me with Propranolol, and after about 1-2 weeks I started feeling that my CU got much weaker.

This medicine is used to treat anxiety it basically slows down the heart rate so it doesn’t make you feel anxious. I have a really bad anxiety I suffer from it 4 times every week. I’d rather not talk about my anxiety–I just wanna focus on my CU; but since getting anxious triggers CU, I think we should talk about that for a bit. I feel a lot less anxious now than before so I think this medicine is definitely helping with my anxiety. Maybe it’s also helping with my CU, but I don’t know that for sure.

I haven’t used the sauna for almost a weak now and I barley felt itchy.
So my CU is much weaker and here are the 3 things that I think that helped with it

1) Sauna
2) Weight loss
3) Propranolol

I no longer wake up 2 hours earlier so that’s a huge relief! I don’t think it’s gone completely but like I said I’m doing regular life activities and I don’t get the attack. Actually today I did a lot of things and I even forgot that I had CU. Later in the day I was thinking “Wow I can’t believe I didn’t feel itchy today.”

That’s all I have to say! Hope everyone gets well soon.

-Ali

Comments

  2. I’m glad to hear that you are much better, but I must correct you. Propranol is not used for anxiety. It is a beta blocker used for high blood pressure and angina and other coronary problems. Perhaps you are misspelling the drug name. People need to know the actual pharmacological names do No Mishaps occur with wrong information.

  3. Ali,
    I actually found great relief from the steam room and sauna at my local gym. Once I got over the fear of actually working out or sweating, I’ve found the sweat therapy works the best! It relaxes you and sends out those wonderful endorphins along with detoxification. It’s ironic because my allergist told me not to work out because it would irritate the hives. After sitting on the couch gaining weight and close to the edge of additional health concerns because of my stagnation, I went against doctors orders and never looked back.(it worked for me, but I was desperate, everyone is different, so be careful) I haven’t been to see him now for about three months, and the meds I take are; Ranitidine, Hydroxizine, and Zertec. Hydroxizine for the itch before bed. Ranitidine twice daily, Zyrtec 3 daily, sometimes 4. The pharmacist told me that these types of meds don’t damage the liver with such severity as high level meds do. Great! So working out, sweat combo, and these meds have brought the CU to a stand still for the moment, and I pray that it lasts. Glad to hear about your progress Ali, may God give you all that you desire in health and wealth.

  4. Congrats! It’s great hearing that you’re almost free of the curse of CU! I have one question. Ive done a little bit of reading on the drug you mentioned, and it says on one article that it is used to treat the symptoms of an overactive thyroid – which is linked to anxiety/fast heart rate. Have you ever been tested for this?

    I’ve been suffering from CU since July 2014. I got tested for my thyroid in January. When I went for my dermatology check up beginning of March, he notified me that I have elevated antithyroid bodies – it runs in my family. When i searched the NHS website (UK), an overactive thyroid has the symptoms of dry skin, sensitivity to heat… and HIVES! My dermatology has to send the results to my GP and they decide whether to put me on the hormone drug… it’s frustrating that the decision won’t be made by myself.

    Anyway I’m just curious. If you do have an overactive thyroid which is causing the hives/hormone imbalance, then the drug you’re taking could be helping with the thyroid effects and, therefore, your hives.

    All the best

    • Thyroid is very likely one of the implications of this disease, but is it the cause? It just verifies that we have an autoimmune disorder which always leads to other ADs if thyroid is messed up and not corrected along with low stomach acid to absorb proper nutrients. Leaky gut is another allowing too large proteins to enter in and immune response leads to hives.

      • I agree Deborah! It’s definitely a possibility. For me, however, I know i’ve had signs of a thyroid problem for a while, yet CU only appeared in July. A couple of years ago, I was underactive, when I went for the test a year later it was back to normal. Mine seems to fluctuate quite a lot which is weird. I also agree with the leaky gut. It’s strange how a lot of people on this forum complain of IBS symptoms. There has to be a correlation

        • Lauren, from what I understand the thyroid can flux back and forth because the body does whatever it has to to survive. Also, the MDs are for the most part ignorant of treating the Cause and starting by actually looking for the cause. Instead they grease the palms of Big Pharma and specialists’ palms and bandaid the symptom. Do you get all 8-10 starter tests to properly diagnose thyroid? I didn’t. They run the same boneheaded TSH and T4 and say you are normal. 75% of our immune system starts in the intestines! If this is whacked our liver and thyroid start acting up and everything else goes haywire. I believe major life stressors over time start all I this. Anything major or life changes occur when you got CU?

          • Deborah, I went for a thyroid test in January and the doctors rang last week for me to go in for another blood test in four weeks because I had elevated thyroid antibodies (which I’m assuming is overactive). in september last year, they ran a VERY basic thyroid test and i was considered in the normal range. It wasn’t until January when I pleaded with them to test my T3 and T4 levels, that it came back a little abnormal.
            I will ask about the 8-10 starter tests when I go as I don’t know much about that.
            I didn’t have any major life changes, no. I went on holiday to America for 2 months and then 3 weeks later when I returned home, I began to get symptoms of CU. During this time, however, I was off the contraceptive pill (been on it previously for two years). My dermatology thinks my CU is hormone related, rather than food etc. Therefore the cause of the hives is thyroid, rather than the other way around (fingers crossed anyway)

          • Hi Lauren, so glad you forced MDs to run antibodies. I believe the additional tests that you need to have run are Thyroid binding antibodies, TPO, T3 and T4 reuptake, free T3 and T4, and the usual TSH. Your contraceptive use is a red flag that possibly has messed your hormones up, and therefore thyroid/liver were affected. Estrogen surges cause all sorts of problems in men and women. Yes, our livers are vital for thyroid function since that’s where T4 is conv. into T3, I believe, and signals the pituitary to activate thyroid. That is interesting that you didn’t get hives, however, until you visited the US. Oh my gosh, I believe you just rung a bell with me, as I just now recall that I didn’t get them until I returned from Mexico! Could these trips have caused a stressor on our systems to trigger autoimmunity?

          • Deborah, I went for my blood test this morning. However they are only running my T3 and T4 again, even though I mentioned the ones in your reply. I think the trips may have something to do with it, beyond our understanding! I used to absolutely love the heat. When I took a trip to Vegas in 2013, everyone around me hated the heat but I just embraced it! It’s funny how things can change.

            I believe that the change in climate, along with my out of balance hormones, triggered my CU. I’ve cut out dairy and wheat, but I had a reaction yesterday just from sitting in a hot car. So i’m ruling out any food intolerances for now. I’m slowly running out of options. This is my first summer dealing with CU so i’m terrified for the next few months, especially as it’s stopped me from travelling after my degree. Fingers crossed we find the trigger for ours soon, and put it right