Cholinergic Urticaria (heat Hives)

I have left a few posts with no replies... I also break out in hives usually only in the winter time.. In the summer I was out mowing the yard shirt off dripping with sweat... Now I can not start to sweat at all or I pop up with hives and the burn my head neck throat and chest area.. I have not had any issues breathing but I pop benedryl like candy... please anyone tell me if when the symptoms start after the tingling feeling we all get do they burn you I am so afraid I will catch on fire or something this is all new to me and quite frankly it scares me to death.. can someone please respond i feel very alone here..
thanks,

ImBurnin...Are You?

I don't believe CU is caused by the cold; however, sweating is much more difficult when the weather gets cold. At least for me, I don't know about you guys. I can definitely see how some of you would only get the condition in winter though, the humidity and whatnot of warmer weather allows you to sweat much easier.

My CU isn't bad to the point where I'm not getting any sleep, but it definitely inhibits some activities. The reason I only get 5-6 hours of sleep is because I'm taking a very demanding course load in school and am a legendary procrastinator, haha.

ImBurnin, I think everyone with CU gets that. Without antihistamines, I find it to be absolutely unbearable and want to pull my hair out. Your symptoms definitely aren't rare for someone with CU.

thank you four response...my question is this though..when my rash/hives start it burns my neck throat and head area the forehead and sides of the neck tend to burn me more than my arms and thighs.. i cant even be around lights without feeling like im on fire... is this normal of cu?? and should i keep moving around through the burning and itching or should i sit in front of th airvent and fan like i have been doing???

ImBurnin...Are you?

lol sorry very late here... thank you four response = thank you for your response

I think the important thing is to try and not and get too down about the whole thing cause you'll think about it more and more and stress yourself out which will aggravate it. Tell your friends and family and make them understand that sometimes you might want to leave a room for a while or something. Show them this forum to let them see that it's not just you and not just in your head. I don't particularly think there's anything wrong with sitting in front of a fan or anything, whatever works for you. Sometimes I used to go into the bathroom and take of my tshirt but i think if you could come to get through the itchiness like 'insats' then that would be better in the long run.
Most of the things that poeple suggest to try and help CU are things which lead to a healthier life anyway even if they don't work so I'd recommend trying them. Running brings it on but it tends to be bearable and not last as long because you sweat that bit quicker. Drink lots of water which decreases histamine production. Go see your doctor and get anti-histamines and if he doesn't know what it is, make sure you explain what you think it is and get him to take it serious. You might be lucky and find some anti-histamines which work for you (I haven't been!!).
Don't let it take over your life. For a while, I wouldn't go anywhere cause i was worried about bringing it on. If your friends know, no matter where you are, if it comes on and you can't stick it through, there will be somewhere you can go for a few minutes to get relief. Things will be a whole lot worse if you let it dictate things.

I hear you about the procrastinating Duper!! University work for me didn't begin until maximum 12 hours before a deadline! I wonder is it a symptom of CU!!

I just found this thread this morning, and after feeling completely hopeless, this thread has given me a new sense of hope. After reading through some of this thread, i am positive i have this condition.

I am 20, turning 21 in a month. I have had this for just about 2 years now. I forget who first brought up lotion, but i can confirm for me at least, it does help. On my face, arms, legs, and parts of my back, i put on mixture i made of Cetaphil lotion/pure aloe/ cortizone 10. It helps in the sense that it takes a longer amount of time before the itchy/stinging sensation starts up.

Now, on the topic on Accutane. I am currently on my second round of treatment with it. The problem is though, I was having this condition for a little over a year before i even started taking Accutane. So i seriously doubt Accutane could be the cause of this problem, but i wouldn't doubt being on it could contribute to the problem considering how much it drys your skin out.

I shall try some of the things suggested. I am seeing my doctor on Monday and shall bring this up with her. Hopefully she might come up with something that could help also. Thanks for the help, and thanks for giving me some hope.

I haven't worked out in probably 3 weeks and I feel like dying. I need to go for a jog one of these days to sweat it all out and keep the histamines down, but I'm so caught up with schoolwork. Sigh. Not to mention I'm getting a little chubby, argh. Ever since I've stopped exercising, it looks I've gotten some sort of rash, but it's not itchy, just red. I'll post an update when I actually go for the workout and hope it goes well.

I went for a run last night for the first time in about 2months. I couldn't actually sweat on my chest and back which is slightly worrying and would probably contribute to my body temperature not regulating. Hopefully if I keep running I'll start sweating again. On a positive note, I'm gonna save a fortune on Lynx!!

For those of you having a little trouble with your CU during the winter months...I suggest hitting a steam room.

For the first time in a couple of years I felt my CU condition start to get a little annoying...

Well, I joined a health club (because I planned on getting some personal training anyway) and luckily enough, they had a steam room.

It works pretty damned good and is a good way to keep the CU at bay until the warmer (and more sweat conducive) months arrive.

I have worked out 4-5 times a week for 20+ years. I eat the same foods, live in the same city, do the same routine, day in day out. Then this past November I got incredibly painful pins and needles whenever Id get warm. Whether lifting weights, sitting by a fireplace, or just talking with people. Now I can take a lot of pain. I have joint issues, and of course when I train I use a lot of weight and expect to be sore for days. But this new pins and needles things was bring me to me knees in the gym!

So Id been scouring BB sites for info about this and finally just googled skin pain sites for a while a found this. Thank you!

One thing that has changed in my routine is recently I have cut back to working out 3 days a week and changed gyms. My current gym is much cooler than my old one and thus I hardly ever sweat in this gym during this cold weather in MI. So I could go thru a whole workout in shorts and t-top and hardly get warm at all. I actually like that beucase I feel more energetic if Im not sweating profusely.

So after reading about the "sweat therapy method here" I decided to go thru my whole workout last night with a shirt + sweat shirt and shorts and sweat pants. Sure enough the pain started about 5 minutes into my routine, but instead of peeling my clothes off to cool down and stop the pain I just pushed thru it. The pain stopped about 10 mintues after it started and I did a 2hour workout including cardio and sweat heavily. I got home took a shower and then worried whether I would sleep ok. I would get the pins and needles waking me up at night...I was so exhuasted from itching and getting no sleep that I wouldnt sleep under the covers and chose to just shiver on top of the bed all night. Well I slept the whole night thru till 7am no pain, no needles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Im at work now and I am a manager. This was beginning to be embarassing infront of my employees becuase I couldnt hide the scratching in front of them while speaking to them. Ill have a bit more answers on wether the "sweat method" worked or not by the end of today, since Im firing someone. This will easily test my body heating up.

Ill post up in a few days how it is going.....

Hey Titan, welcome to the forums. Nice to see another bodybuilder here. I sort of first experienced CU the same way; when I first cut back on my workouts. Anyway, good luck and make sure to tell us if you make any progress.

hey everyone. ive had severe cholinergic urticaria and hypohidrosis for 2 years now. i have heard that beta-blockers can work well for treating cholinergic urticaria. have any of you tried these and had success? let me know please!! peace.

I've had the big cu for 2 years now. I've tried everything n nothing seems to have any effect. I came across Lacitrex n they say it is the cure for any kind of hives. I just ordered it to try it so i'll let you guys know if it works. Check out the website.. Lacitrex.com

everyone's talking about exercise and all...

i cant handle doing exercise because within 5 mins, i die from pain. what i actually do is sleep at night warm, i turn on a portable heater and use two blankets. this keeps me nice and warm but sometimes i would wake up in the middle of the night in pain due to the heat. i feel like this is really working.

i was "cured" of CU for a ~1.5 year period. but it came back... DAMN! i thought about what i was doing when the CU started up again. it came back during the summer, and during that time, i started to work at a new place. this place had their AC jacked up to the max and i would ALWAYS be freezing, literally shaking from the cold. and i remember, when i walk home from the subway station to my place, i would become all itchy but never really have redness and the wheals. i was eventually able to sweat it out and it was all good. but when fall came around, i remember there was a couple of nights where it became cold all of a sudden. i wasnt ready for it so i slept with one blanket and no heat in the house. i remember i was shaking from the cold. after those few days, the hives started to come back.

so, what im doing right now, is trying to keep warm all the time, rather, prevent being cold. i know this sounds backwards because for us, being warm kills us. but these past few weeks, ive been able to sweat from my forehead and the palms of my hands which i havent been able to do. it still kills but not as bad.

it may take a couple months... i remember the first time i got over CU, i did try to keep warm in my room during the winter months, and it SLOWLY went away.

I wanted to post a message a long time ago, because i have read all the posts and just recently i have found small article how to treat cholinergic urticaria. But first off all here is my story and my opinion about all of this: I am from Latvia and i got CU last year in January, it started like only a small itchting on my stomach area and first it happened when i trained in the gym (i am a bodybuilder too) in that period of time when it appeared i really trained a lot and was taking a protein Mega Mass 4000 and amino acid complex(glutamin, creatin and taurin) and my emotional condition was like i could explode for any doddle, because i concentrated only on my training, i did not go out with my friends to partys and so on, but at the same time i was happy because my muscles were growing . Step by step my CU got worse - appeared hives and i went to allergist and analyses showed that i have increased level of Helicobacter Pylori (it can cause hives), so i took antibiotic course, but this did not help. Later i took xyzal (the newest antihistamin) and it helped, but not 100%. After a small period of time xyzal stopped working, it took away only the itchting, but not the hives, then i took homeopathic medicine, but it does not work, my CU got worse and worse, it was like a virus step by step overtaking my body, because at the beginning i had hives only on my palms, but now when my body temperature heats up whole my body is covered with hives . At the begging of last years summer i went to do immunotherapy - they were taking blood from my vena centrifuged it and the yellow liquid let in my shoulder muscle, i did it for two weeks, nothing worked . Then my allergist said that it is not normal and put me into hospital for one and a half week to do a lot of analysis - so the results was unexpected for me, because when i did a veloergonometry (to check how work my lungs and heart during loading), they had to stop the test, because at the middle of the test when there was only intermediate loading i reached submaximal pulse and they wrote that i have low work ability. I was really shocked, because i am only 21 and all my life i have been doing a lot of sport activities. Okey one doctor said that it is normal for athletes that train very hard and then rapidly stop training and take longer period of rest,(i was not training for fife month) heart acts like this to loadings. I also found article about that histamin release can affect your heart rate. Now i take concor it is a beta blockator. After this test i went to another four different heart tests, but everything was fine. Do you feel the same that when you got CU your heart beets much faster??? Next one i was doing electroencefalogramm (check signals in your brains and a lot more) and something was not okey with this also, next week i will go to magnetic resonance to check my head. They also found something in my urine it showed that i have some kind of infection, later they did a lot more analysis to find this infection, but they did not find. So after the visit in hospital they found some things that they could not explain . Later i discover that to sweat a lot helps very well, the best is to go to sauna, infrared is also good. There are also a lot more to do to treat CU, for example, hidrocolontherapy, acupuncture and there is even a procedure with laser to get rid of allergy, but i found a really great information how exactly treat CU hear is the article http://sciencelinks.jp/j-east/artic le/200705/000020070507A0160871.php, i sent this information to my allergist and he said to me that he do not know how to do this , because it is something new, japans are really very clever guys. But very soon it will be possible to do this and the best is that it is a natural way to cure CU.
I have one more question to all of you - have you done any analysis that was wrong or some bigger investigations on your health, because no one of you speaks about that "yeah i did this and this and there was that and that", because it is very important to find out what we have common, it is clear that we all have CU, then there must be other things that we have common i think that in USA there is better health care than in Latvia and you should do a lot of investigations.
So if you have more questions please write me i will be glad to answer them. I apologize for my English, because there are a lot of mistakes in my post I hope that my post was helpful. Together we will find how to treat CU, and a HAPPY NEW YEAR to all of you.

mistake, remove comma at the end of the link and it will work!!!
here is the correct link:
http://sciencelinks.jp/j-east/articl e/200705/000020070507A0160871.php