When I was a young teenager, I broke out into the hives that never end. It took a long time before we finally got into the allergist to see why I had chronic hives all over my body! Well, they put me on a ton of meds to control the hives so they could do an allergy test, and lo and behold, I was allergic to 95% of the stuff they for which they tested. Basically, I am allergic to nature. Thank God I'm not allergic to any food or meds as well.
The Dr. said my hives looked like they came straight out of a textbook. Thanks, I guess?
But they never did figure out exactly WHY I was getting them. They explained it like this:
Well, 50% of the time, hives go away in a few days. Otherwise, 50% of the time they go away in a week. Otherwise, 50% of the time they go away in a month. Otherwise, 50% of the time they go away in a year. Otherwise, 50% of the time we figure out it's some kind of freaky deaky medical condition. Otherwise, 50% of the time we have no idea why they are there and they come and go as they please. And that's why you have hives.
Okay, so I'm part of the 1% of people who has mysterious, unexplainable chronic hives. Great.
I ended up doing allergy shots for years, while taking a combination of meds that does a doozy on hives, apparently. My allergies are not completely gone, but I'm only allergic to 30% of the things on the test now. Yippee! It's got to the point where I can control my allergies with OTC Zyrtec (one of the three meds I had been taking) and I can't afford the cost of immunotherapy. So OTC it is.
I'm really worried that I'm going to have allergy issues in FL. It's the worst thing in the world to suddenly realize that your allergies are acting up and your EARLOBE is itching like CRAZY when you don't have your old prescription strength meds to beat that sucker into normality. Okay, scratch that. There are worse things. But let me just say that it's REALLY, REALLY miserable. Like tossing around in your bed all night keeping your DH up because your legs are itchy for no good reason kind of miserable.
So, this is why SilverL is still online when everyone else is outside.
And also why I have a big medicine bag already packed in my suitcase like a freaky medicine man, full of Zyrtec, Sudafed, and
some random heartburn medication that apparently works wonders on hives (it's one of the ones my allergist prescribed!)
I remind him often that he's married to a crazy person.