Urticaria hell for over a year! Journey to the cure....
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I have been struggling with Urticaria for over a year now. It has been hell. It weighs so heavy on me I started feeling very low and it is affecting the quality of my life. So I said any info I can pass to others to help, I would, as there is so little out there. GP's main answer is anti-histamines.
PLEASE DON'T TAKE ZIRTEC/ CETRIZINE. It was the biggest mistake I made. While taking them all symptoms disappeared...as long as you take every 36-48 hours!!! If I tried to resist taking them my body would be in physical pain. It makes you feel like your blood is BRISTLING with spikes under the surface of your skin! It rushes from one part of your body to another...totally intolerable and painful. I felt like I wanted to pull all of my skin off....from palms to stomach to arms to souls of feet. Along side anti-histamines I tried natural recommendations like 'flushing' with Niacin and other herbal remedies for itching and liver such as stinging nettle etc to no avail. I did a course of steroids initially also when the GP felt it was an auto-immune disorder. These made me feel horrible and didn't help either!
I had resigned to taking tablets forever until the talk of babies popped up. Anti-histamines have potentially horrific effects on a fetus so I was forced to continue the journey to find the cure. I tried to go 'cold turkey' while we tried to conceive. It just wasn't possible! I managed to wean myself on to Piriton. This is safer if thinking of conceiving as it is less potent and as the drug is around longer it is more widely tested. I know the sound of something that is 'less potent' doesn't appeal. Trust me - my life has changed since doing it. I only need one every 7-10 days!!! It doesn't completely numb the body. Small itches come and go daily but it doesn't lead to a crazy attack of itch and pain.
The goal is to get off tablets altogether so I have started a treatment programme with an allergy specialist. He feels Urticaria is often mis-diagnosed as an auto-immune disorder. Its root cause can often occur in the sinus! It then occurred to me that I always felt my nasal passage was too small to breath through but I never questioned why and got on with my life....until I couldn't. When he examined my sinus with a camera - my nasal passage is completely swollen with nasal polyps (growths) that are full of allergens being released constantly into my blood stream.
The planned treatment was a low salicylic diet and a course of montelukast and nasacort. The diet combined with these would allow these polyps to heal and then slowly return to normal life.
A complication in my case was I discovered I had a low fertility rate so I could not take the Montelukast as it stopped me from ovulating/conceiving.
So now I am about to try the safe alternative: Rhinolight (A UV light treatment). It is expensive but I am very hopeful it will work! I will need 10 treatments (Twice a week for 5 weeks).
I am already seeing major improvements with the new diet and only Piriton so I will keep you posted once I start my UV treatment.
FIngers crossed!
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