| Chronic hives - what cured me instantly
Hello, After 10 years of suffering disabling chronic hives I finally found a cure last year and have been symptom free ever since. I thought I would share this because it's such an awful condition and hopefully this information will help someone.
I did extensive research at the time and this took me down avenues such as histamine intolerance, FODMAPS diet, leaky gut syndrome, candida and leaky gut syndrome. I was left feeling helpless, with a restrictive diet which *seemed* to help, though looking back I'm not sure it did.
it turned out to be a simple problem and I can't believe the wasted years of my life I spent suffering. It turns out I have an allergy to perfume. It was so disgustingly simple I can't believe I never figured this out. The thing was that it didn't seem likely - the hives came on suddenly when I was 17 and I had previously used products with perfume in with no problem. The reaction to perfume was delayed hives rather than an instant contact effect. Also I didn't have hives every day and also not on the same parts of the body. At the time I tried using unperfumed washing powder but this had no effect. Looking back this must have been because it was a shared washing machine and residues were probably left in there from the previous wash. Also I would stay around my boyfriends house, where the sheets would have been washed in normal detergent. Also perhaps I would wear an item of clothing that had been at the back of the cupboard and hadn't been freshly washed in the new unperfumed detergent. Another thing that sets me off is walking bare foot on carpet - perhaps perfumed carpet cleaner residues in the fibres. What I am saying is that even if you have tried testing whether you are allergic to perfume there may have been lots of contact which you had unknowingly.
So you haven't had any success treating your hives, try completely eliminating perfume in your life. This is quite difficult because it really is in everything.
-Wash ALL of your clothes and bedding in unperfumed detergent and put it on an extra rinse cycle afterwards
-use only unperfumed deoderant, hair products, face and body wash
-unperfumed washing up liquid
-no perfume/body spray
-make sure you're not breathing in other peoples perfume
-no room fragrances
-no perfumed cleaning products
-don't borrow other peoples clothes
-don't sleep in other peoples sheets/hotel rooms
I really hope this helps someone. If someone told me all this 10 years ago I may well have dismissed it as unlikely because I had no history of allergies but if your hives are unexplained this is a really likely cause and worth trying.
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