HeatHives.com-Cholinergic Urticaria and Hives

Hello everyone!

Probably the biggest problem I have with this hives thing is the painful prickling sensation.  Sure it itches too (and the rash/bumps aren’t my idea of fun either), but it is those stinging little pricklies that make you have to scratch, but yet scratching provides no relief. That is the most uncomfortable part of it in my opinion. Sometimes I think if it wasn’t for the stinging it wouldn’t be that bad at all. I could completely manage it. But the stinging & itching sensation can be so strong (and even painful), that it can almost make you turn into a fit of rage. Ahhh, how I dream of those days when I could run & exercise & walk outside with no fear of hives, and sweat would drop from my nose & forehead…I miss those days!

Diet Update:

Well I have now been on the diet of NO MILK a couple of days now. I have not seen any results yet, but this is not surprising as it will take weeks instead of days before any results will likely be seen anyways. It seems as if I am not quite as reactive as I was about 4 days ago. I do still have the red bump on my inner index finger as well (which will probably also take a week or two before it goes away).

The way I see it, it is kind of like any other diet. If you went on a diet to lose weight, then you would not expect to see results the next day. Instead, it is a very slow process. So I will be looking for subtle changes over the next few weeks/months. I will be seeing how my skin feels, if the bump on my finger clears up, and if the hives become less sensitive with everything else being equal (no sweat therapy) or other changes.

If I don’t see the results, the I will cut back wheat/gluten out of my diet as well & see if that changes anything. Here is what my diet has been like so far:

Sunday Meals:  For breakfast I had a bowl of Dyno Bytes cereal (a generic form of cocoa pebbles) with some rice milk. Rice milk actually tastes pretty good, and has no real milk in it. For lunch I had some beef stew been burritos my wife cooked. Very tasty. And we had the same for dinner. As a snack I had some banana nut bread that my wife cooked from scratch. It was her first time making it, and it turned out great. I was actually surprised at how easy it was for her to make. Just some flour, bananas, walnuts, sugar, and vanilla. Here is a picture of it:

I also snacked on a few cashews, and half of a yellow bell pepper. Everything was milk-free. The cereal, the corn tortillas, even the banana nut bread. I was careful to read all ingredients on every label while buying the items at the store. My wife is also being a great sport & actually avoiding milk with me, which makes life easier on me since she is the cook.

Mondays Meals: Today, I had a dyno bytes for breakfast again, and the tortillas/burritos for lunch & dinner (left-overs from yesterday). I also snacked on a half of a yellow bell pepper, a few cashews, and had a couple of chips & salsa. Again, everything was milk free.

So I will continue on the diet & see how things work over the next few weeks. I am optimistic about the the diet. If nothing else, it will let me know for sure whether anything in my diet is causing (or at least worsening) my hives. So in due time I will have my answer! And if it turns out that a food intolerance isn’t causing the CU, then I can at least mark that off my list as a possible factor.

Okay, now about a couple of months ago, I did an elimination type of diet. Basically, I avoided foods with gluten, wheat, milk, and other allergens. I did this diet for about 3-4 weeks (I had a couple of days in that period where I had small traces of possible milk/gluten, but overall I was very disciplined). Warning: it wasn’t easy to forget about all the tasty food in the world…

During this time, my hives became less & less reactive, but not completely cured. I could do situps, and go out in the sun for quite a while, but eventually I would get itchy. It wasn’t as intense, and seemed to stop quicker as well.

So I called the diet quits thinking that it wasn’t the answer, and reintroduced milk into my diet. I had severe stomach problems about 4 hours after eating ice cream (no gluten in it). That is how I discovered my milk issue (which I had recently been mostly solving with the use of lactose pills). However, I have now realized that there could be a connection with milk-hives. It is at least a possibility.

Also, I have read a few articles online, that indicate when you have an food intolerance that causes skin conditions, certain antibodies (IgA, IgG, etc.) can take as long as 1 year before the excess antibody deposits are completely gone from the skin. So perhaps my original diet wasn’t long enough anyways?

My New Diet: Milk/Dairy Free

So with my new diet, I will be once again completely avoiding dairy/milk products. I will continue this diet, and continue keeping everyone updated on my progress. My plan is to avoid milk products only, and see if the rash on my finger goes away, and if I start becoming less sensitive with my cholinergic urticaria–while at the same time eating lots of other foods (such as wheat, etc). Again, I will make sure to keep everyone updated with my condition, and also may post some of the foods I am eating while on the diet (it helps me stay motivated & keep track of my progress).

Also, I am still not ruling out a possible gluten issue or other food intolerance 100% at this point. Gluten intolerance is known to destroy the villi in your intestines, which also break down milk & causes lactose intolerance symptoms. So it could be linked to gluten, but at this point I think it may just be milk/dairy, and gluten may be okay for me.

So I will continue to eat oatmeal/wheat, etc. I plan to cut out dairy, and see how that works over the next month or two. If I start to see good results, I will stay on the diet of NO milk.

However, if I don’t see good results, I may remove other things from my diet (such as gluten). Hopefully these next few months will be a learning experience. If nothing else, I can at least see once & for all if there is a diet link to my cholinergic urticaria symptoms.

As you learned from my last post below, I had a pretty rough cholinergic urticaria (heat hives) outbreak following a period of excess milk consumption (more than usual for me). Nothing else changed during this period. I had recently been “sweating it out” the previous week.

As soon as I ate more milk, I noticed 2 main symptoms that I think are related. First, the itchy eczema-like bump on my finger, and a highly noticeable increase in my sensitivity (I usually don’t have bad outbreaks just walking outside, or sitting in my apartment).

Putting 2 & 2 together: Milk, Hives, and Itching…Oh my!

So, if I increase milk consumption & begin having skin rashes that appear on my skin about 1 week later, then that tells me milk is doing something in my body that causes a reaction.

So…If milk can cause a physical rash & stomach problems (not CU, but an itchy red bump/rash), then it is not a stretch to assume that it COULD be linked to my CU.  How could it be doing this, I have no idea. Here is a possible theory if milk or food intolerance is indeed the culprit:

Perhaps my milk allergy/intolerance issue is somehow causing a build-up of certain immune antibodies (IgA, IgG, etc), that are collecting in my skin in excessive amounts. These aren’t activated unless I get heated. When I get heated, my body sends a signal to my sweat glands to release sweat. This chemical (probably acetylcholine), activates/stimulates these immune antibodies. This chemical causes our mast cells in our upper skin layer to break down, causing the histamine release, and subsequent itching/prickling.

Maybe that is why the sweating helps us. It keeps the sweat coming out, so it bypasses these chemical responses. The only problem is, once we stop sweating for a few days, or when winter comes…we are back to square one. So maybe that is why sweating helps, but may not CURE the CU symptoms permanently.

Now that is just my theory, not a fact. I could be completely wrong about this. It is simply an idea. I am not a doctor & certainly not an expert on hives/CU. But it is a working theory that may change over time as we find out more & try more experiments. Also, I will be doing an experiment with my diet to see if it helps. It may turn out that milk causes skin & stomach issues, but has nothing to do with CU. Only time will tell.

So, if that is true, then it could be something diet related (such as food intolerance such as gluten, milk, wheat, etc.), or a parasite or something that causes the body to build these chemicals up. It could be different for every person. I am thinking in my situation it is diet related.

Keep in mind, there is a guy named “sailor” that is on the yahoo answers forum, that has confirmed that he found out he was gluten intolerant. After about 1-2 months of going gluten free, his hives went away completely (he didn’t have CU, but had a different type of physical hives).

So, I will be making a new post detailing a new diet test I will be trying.

Hello everyone!

Well I just wanted to update everyone on my own hives situation, and also tell you about a few experiments I am going to try with my diet soon.

First of all, as many of you may know, I have already determined through a diet test that milk is no longer my friend. Apparently, I have some sort of  milk intolerance/allergy. I was completely unaware of this until recently, and used to eat lots of ice cream, etc. I only noticed this after having a lot of stomach problems, and completely removing milk from my diet a few months ago. I then reintroduced milk into my diet, and had severe stomach problems.

So, after this little experiment I decided I would try to reduce the milk in my diet, and when I felt the urge to eat it, I would simply take those lactose pills so it wouldn’t upset my stomach. Overall, the lactose pills worked well (but they are fickle & you have to make sure to take enough of them).

Anyways, I have been taking the pills, and still eating some milk products here & there. Then, over this past week, I got a lot of snack food on my grocery store visit. I got a lot of those little snicker bars (milk), some chocolate peanut butter cups (milk), ate a peanut butter milkshake (milk), and had a pizza (milk), and a couple of twix bars (milk), oh yeah, and those little peanut m&m’s (milk).

I did have some stomach upsets (just a little cramping), but that isn’t the reason I am writing this post. Instead, I think there is a strong possibility of a food intolerance with at least some CU sufferers (myself included).

After about 2-5 days of eating all of these little snacks loaded with milk/dairy ingredients, I began to develop a small red/itchy bump on the inside of my finger. I have had CU off/on for about 7 years now (almost 8), and I never had any rashes or eczema issues. But I did develop a rash on the back of my neck/arms/hands about a year ago, which I was able to eliminate by reducing my milk intake, and with the help of a topical steroid cream.

Now, by eating a lot more dairy than usual, this bump appears (it appeared before in the exact same spot when I had my rash outbreak last year). Here is a picture of it (it is kinda hard to see with the lighting in the pic).

But that isn’t the only thing that has happened. Many of us on the forum have been trying to use a “sweat” type of therapy, which involves trying to make our bodies more adapted to sweating. Well I had been trying this with great results. I worked outside a few days during the week, and was sweating fine.  Then, I had a period of a few days where I mostly stayed indoors (also the same time when I was eating all the milk products).

Well, suddenly after these few days I became super-reactive. Literally, I started getting prickly just sitting in my apartment. The thermostat read 71 degrees, and I am usually fine at that temp. I continued breaking out like this for 2 days. I walked outside & immediately got prickly. I also got prickly in my sleep.

I even had a “BAD” type of outbreak. I was just sitting in my apartment. Suddenly I felt the prickly stinging/itching sensation in a few spots. So I scratched & didn’t think about it. Then, it kept doing it. I thought…Okay why am I breaking out right now. I then start scratching myself like crazy on my head, chest, abdomen, arms, etc. I told my wife to grab our camera. Then, after intense itching, my chest became red in a lot of areas, and I developed a few of the “pinpoint” hives. Here are some pictures of this whole event: PS..I apologize in advance about the small amount of chest hair, but in my defense, I am a guy…hehe.

The pictures above are right in the middle of my outbreak. It was itching & stinging very intensely before any physical symptoms appeared (such as the red flushed skin & hives). I usually don’t have very visible symptoms, only during a very bad attack like this one. I was itching so badly I could barely hold still long enough for my wife to snap the shots.

By the way, about 10 minutes later, the hives and redness were completely gone.

I will be making another post detailing my thoughts & a new diet test I will be trying…