Skin Forum - Prickly Skin - nervous or anxious from the hot

Hi Sailorvic

I am a new user to this forum and I have the same symptoms as you. I'm not a medical practitioner but here's what I have so far.

I believe the medical term for our condition is: Cholinergic Urticaria. Cholinergic urticaria is a physical allergy characterized by the development of punctate (1 to 3 mm diameter) intensely pruritic wheals with erythematous flaring after an increase in core body temperature or stress.

In particular, our case seems to be of the sub-category of Exercise-induced Anaphylaxis. http: //www.jcaai.org/pp/anaph_23_exercise.asp#a naph_XXIII_

Essentially, a raise in core body temperature or stress level can trigger an attack. No obvious sign/rash on skin to suggest anything wrong.

Like you, I get an attack in the following situations:
1) When I know I'm about to sweat, brief walk/exercise etc
2) When I'm nervous/stressed (happens a lot in my job)
3) After a hot shower (I've stopped having them since)

I've been having this since the start of this year. I'm 29 yrs old.

Bad news is I don't have any definite answer for you. I've relatively new to trying to cure this so I don't have a lot of suggestions. Below is what I suggest:

1) All literature agrees that the itchiness/pricking sensation is caused by the release of histamine in your body. Hence, anti-histaimine should help to minimize or at least lessen the attack. However, there are many different formulaes ofr anti-histaimine, including first-generation and second-generation types, H1 vs H2 etc. I am not a medical person so I don't know the difference. I hope to do more research on this in the coming weeks and find out what is best for me.
2) You mentioned Zrytec didn't work for you. How often were you taking it? What was your dosage? I've read that in some case you might need to keep taking it regularly to build up sufficient dosage in your body. http://www.jcaai.org/pp/u r_part_1.asp. My doctor said I can take up to 3 tablets a day.
3) Some literature also suggest H1 and H2 anti-histamine is required together to be effective
4) Other medicines that have reported to be effective on similar sitautions, Benedryl, Ketotifen, Cimitidine Magicul 800, ephinephrine. I have no idea what these are but am simply collecting what other people said has helped in the past. Don't use them without medical advise.
5) Some poster on this board reported Acupunture or Homeopathic Medicine to be useful. Again, not sure whether this is applicable for us but something to keep in mind.

I saw a dermotologist last week but he wasn't very useful. Apart from giving me the above medical term he essentially gave me 3 types of drugs (Claratyne, Zyrtec and Telfast) and told me to go try it out. I'm also trying to see whether there is a Cholinergic Urticaria specialist in Melbourne that can help with this.

For the next few weeks I'm going to take regular dosage of Zyrtec (3 times a day) and will test out the effects during that period. I'll report back to let you know how I go.

We're both in Melbourne so what works for you might work for me. Please keep in touch. Would love to hear how you go. Feel free to PM me for more detailed discussions.

Dwarfer