Chronic Hives(urticaria) Dermatographisim etc...

[Hogan Grimm]

Hello all. I am new to this board,and have read through all of the posts in the hives thread, and the one that asks, Does anyone else have urticaria? First off I guess I should start with a little history about myself.
I am 38 year old male. About 3.5 years ago I started having problems with breaking out into hives. At first it wasn't very bad. It started under the skin of the palms of my hands along with uncontrolable itching in that area. At first I thought I might have picked up some sort of fungis. I tried washing my hands with bleach, comet, you name it I tried it. Within a few weeks it got progressively worse. I started breaking out in hives all over my arms, face, back, legs, feet, you name it I broke out there. After so long a time of this happening, I started to suffer from dermatograghisim. My allergy doctor says the reason I have dermatographisim is because I have an over accumulation of mast cells due to having the condition I suffer from. Ok that is a breif history. Now let me get a little more indepth. I'm not going to lie and say I have lived a perfect healthy life because I haven't. What I am going to try to do is see if with the help of anyone else on this board is give a wide spectrum of this problem and mabe just mabe we can come up with some answers. First off I am an alcoholic. I drank for a lot of years everyday for about ten years,(Beer only) even after this started happening to me. Although I did cut down on my drinking after a year of this happening to me. I started to just drink on the weekends, finally I stopped drinking all together. The 8th of this month will be one year. Even though I have stopped, it hasn't helped me stop breaking out. But at least that is one thing I have eliminated, which could have been a possible cause for myself that is. I have changed my entire way of living, that is if you want to call what we go through living. In my case I try to live as healthy as I can. Now to keep this from being so long and drawn out, what I would like to do is keep this tread going. I would like any and everybody with this condition to band together, put our collective knowledge on the table and see if we can come up with some answers as to what we might do to stop this once and for all. Don't be afraid to post, don't hold anything back. I want anyone and everyone to know who has this problem, you are not alone. We can help one another, as long as we stick together. Please don't let this thread fizzle out like the hives thread did. Lastly, I just want to let you all know, I know how hard it is going through life like this, (man do I know) there is no quality of life for us. For all of you who have suffered from this longer than I have, my heart goes out to you. As we stand now, we know there is no cure, But if we work together mabe we can come up with ways to get the medical community to work harder on finding one. I'm sure you will agree. even one day of going through this is to long. Remember the old saying. United we stand, divided we fall. Let's be united.
Hogan Grimm

[This message has been edited by Hogan Grimm (edited 08-03-2003).]

[Hogan Grimm]

Hello all, I'm back. I will now relate some of the research I have done since this has been happening. I started doing a lot of research on vitamins and what they are supposed to help with. Now bear with me, the only information we have to go on as far as vitamins are concerned is that there is no concrete evidence that they really work for anything. let's take vitamin c for example. It is reported that low levels of vitamin c in the blood can mean high levels of histamine. Only two studies have been done in humans, however, and a small one at that. The study was done at the Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn, What thy found was that people who took 1,000 mg of vitamin c every day for 3 days had significant reductions of histimane in the blood. Of coarse this study was done somewhere around 1996 or before. Wow, that was a real big study huh. As with any vitamine if you will read the lable on the bottle they all say this has not been evaluated by the FDA, and this product is a dietary supplement only. What that means is only studies have been done and there is no concrete proof that it really works. Not to mention if you are careful to read the other ingredients there are always additivies or preservitives, most of which people like us are probably allergic to. Now vitamin c may help people who's allergies are not so severe, but not for people like us who's internal workings have gone completely haywire. At least it didn't work for me. I have tried a whole host of things all kinds of differnet vitamins from a to z. I have tried changing my diet, There are a whole host of foods I cannot eat anymore, I can't drink sodas or anything that has ascorbic acid, corn syrup, high fructose etc.... I can't eat any pork, any kind of poltry. Beef is the only meet I have found to be the safest, and it has to be very lean. I bake all of my food now. I never eat anything fried anymore, or out of a can or box because they have to many additives and preservitives, especialy monosodium glutimate. In todays society it is so very hard to find any kind of food that is not processed. Watch out for foods that contian partially hydrogenated oils, And that is very hard to do that is if you eat foods that come in a box or processed cheese, or any kind of potato chips, cornchips, pretty much anything in a bag. As time goes on I will post more information on my research, anyone and everyone is welcome to reply, if you don't feel the need that is up to you. But I would like to encourage people who are suffering from this problem to please do so. We can accomplise a lot together. Don't just be satified with what your doctor is telling you, don't be afraid to go out and find answers on your own. Don't just go home and sit on the couch and think there is nothing you can do or that it is hopless. Remember there is always hope as long as we try. The only time there is no hope is when we give up. Don't give up.
hogan Grimm

[carolelizz]

I am fairly new to the whole dermatographia thing. I suffered for 8 months before bothering to go to the doctor. (as my mother would say, you damn medical people will never go to the doctor when you need it) I too thought, it will go away, I changed my detergent, fabric softener, shampoo etc... I am now going through the multiple allergy tests and finding out that I am allergic to most everything in my life What's interesting is this all started while I was taking a microbiology class. I know find articles on case studies done where patients tested positive for bacteria and molds I used in the labratory. My Dr. doesn't think one has to do with the other while my husband is convinced that is why I am now dealing with this. Just wanted to touch base with a few others who know all too well the horrible "fits" of itch and burn no one I know has ever dealt with or even heard of this illness. Thanks.

[Hogan Grimm]

Hello carolelizz.
Thank you for responding to this thread I have started. I would like to encourage you to keep comming back here. Wha I am trying to do is to get other people with this problem to come together and put our collective minds to work on somehow solving this problem, and mabe by doing that we might start to find the answers we are looking for. I don't have a whol lot of time to post right now as I will have to be getting ready for work soon, But I will be posting later today when I get back home. Before I go though just want to let you know this. If you are suffering from dermatographisim, according to my allergy DR. That means your skin is very sensitive to any kind of pressure, so you may want to bring that up to your DR,
because doing a skin test might give false possitives.
Meaning that by doing a skin test, your skin is reacting to the pressure of the skin ***** and not the actual allergin itself, or both. I will be back later today to post more on this. Once again thanks for posting. Hopefully other people will follow. Thanks
Hogan Grimm

[Hogan Grimm]

Hello all, Before I get started I just want to say thanks to carolelizz once again for taking the time out of her busy schedual to drop a line.

Ok, Let's talk about Ideopathic Urticaria. Please bare with me folks, I know my posts can get long, but sometimes it takes alot to explain. If you really want to know, Then bare with me, and hopefully join me in my search for answers. What is Ideopathic Urticaria? Or better yet what does the term Ideopathic mean? If you don't already know, it means that you doctor has no earthly idea what is wrong with you. And from my experience most doctors don't really care. They just prescribe some antihistimines and say call me in the morning. Just to let you people know, if you don't know already know. Antihistimines can dammage your kidneys. They can even shut them down if you are not careful and take more than what you are supposed to. Or They will prescribe steroids like prednisone which is what I am taking, and can be very harmful over a long period of time. Prednisone comes with a whole host of side effects ranging from, most Common: osteoperosis, possible leading to stomach or duodenal ulcer. Common: Water retention, heart failure, potassium loss, muscle weakness, loss of muscle mass, slowed healing of wounds, black and blue marks, and the list goes on. These are just to name a few. As if we don't have enough problems already. This is one of the reasons why we need to work together to find some way to put our heads together and come up with some way to get the medical community to find a cure. What we suffer from is a disease that needs to be recognised as such by the medical community and not looked at as only an allergic reaction. Well I guess I have said enough for now. Tommorow I will cover a little more on the subject of Urticaria. Thanks all
Hogan Grimm

[This message has been edited by Hogan Grimm (edited 08-05-2003).]