anyone have hives?

[jeanmary]

OK, this is something new. I have started to develop hives daily unless I take Zyrtec daily. I had something like this when I was 12-16 years old but did not require medicine. It sometimes seems triggered by cold but not always. This has been going on for almost 4 weeks and what I read about it if it is chronic that it may be an autoimmune condition. It sometimes resolves itself over a short period of time or could go on for years. I sometimes develop them on my lips and that is the worst. I have an appt. with my regular doctor tommorrow and hope she can be incouraging.
I am somewhat in the "what's next" mode and mildly upset at the prospect of yet another condition there is no known cause for and no "cure" type medicines.
My husband is sick and tired of talking medical situations with me so I have down played the worry I have. Some with this condition must take steroids to control the hives and I can't think about doing that.
Wish me luck and I am interested to know if any of you suffer from hives or rashes. Right now I only take Lyrica and Tramadol for my IC issues.
Thanks for listening.
Jean

[kadi]

Yes, I have had rashes ever since developing IC. Sometimes it's a sandpaper type rash on my forearms, thighs. I also get a red pinpoint rash on my neck. I've seen a dermatologist & allergist, neither knows what this is.
I am sure though, that it's IC related, because I never had the neck rash before IC, and the sandpaper rash only rarely (when I ate something I'm allergic to).

[ICNDonna]

A possibility is that you are coming in contact with something on a daily basis that is causing your hives. You may have developed an allergy. One thing you might try is to keep a very detailed diary of everything that goes into your mouth, including times and when the eruptions appear. I'm glad you'll be seeing your doctor ---that's definitely the route to go.

Donna

[Sarojini]

You could also have dermatographism, which is an overactivity of mast cells in the skin. I have this condition, and when it flares I get hives daily. Any pressure on my skin causes them... you can literally take a blunt object, write on my skin, and it will come up as a big hive and be readable! That's why they call it dermatographism (skin writing).

I find the Atarax I take for my bladder also helps ward off flares of this. However, Zyrtec is the next best thing for hives. Sometimes, if you take it with Tagamet (the antacid pill) it works even better (a trick learned from my dermatologist -- that way both H1 and H2 histamine receptors are blocked and it's harder to create a hive that way).

[pingpong]

I also have dermographism. I literally can write on my skin by scratching out a message with a fingernail - the message appears a few minutes later as a raised, red welt that can get really itchy if I keep scratching it. This condition cropped up after I had been diagnosed with hypothyroidism 30 years ago and before my lupus diagnosis twenty years ago, so it sounds autoimmune to me! I used to take some sort of antihistamine for it, but I stopped taking it years ago after I started taking prednisone for the lupus. It's annoying, but it's the least of my problems right now.