Living With Hives

It’s a drag

My first bout of urticaria, or hives, hit when I was around 13 years old. It was the dark ages of the early 1970s and our family doctor prescribed low-dose phenobarbital to be taken twice daily and told my parents that I needed to “calm down”.

It was nerves.

Yes, apparently my parents had a hysterical tween on their hands and they had no idea what to do about that. The first decision my mother made was to put the phenobarbital on a shelf in the bathroom and only dole them out in case of a really severe outbreak to control my unruly nerves. She was not going to contribute to her daughter becoming a drug fiend (you can appreciate the irony).

I can’t remember how long they lasted but I do clearly remember that it was absolute hell.

Some mornings I could barely open my eyes because the hives had swollen my face so badly. Other days I had trouble walking because they were stretching the skin on the bottoms of my feet. Caladryl lotion was supposed to ease the horrible itching so I went around covered in dried patches of pink. My best friend, Bonnie, made me a little bottle of Don’t Give a Damn pills and filled it with candy.

I can’t think of a worse age to get hit with something like hives than 13.

It’s just an all-around horrible age to begin with. Everything is confusing. I didn’t want to grow up and turn into a woman. I didn’t want periods and I didn’t want to ever have to wear a bra. I was completely at sea in the 7th grade where we had to go to different classrooms for different classes throughout the day. I was placed on an academic track because my reading level was advanced but that meant I was in advanced mathematics where I sat in shock all year until I collected my D and was released from that hell.

And then there was gym class.

The ultimate circle of hell for so many of us sensitive types. Everything about gym class was bad from trying to figure out combination locks to the humiliation of not being able to climb the heavy ropes suspended from the ceiling.

Add stripping for showers while covered in swollen red welts to that witches’ brew and it’s a wonder I’m not still in therapy.

Somehow I survived that ordeal and went on to all the other trials by fire that await highly sensitive potential addicts in their teen years. I think my mother maybe gave me three of those phenobarbital pills over the course of my having hives and, of course, they did nothing. I just lived covered with red, itchy, ugly, horrid welts for most of my first year in junior high school.

And then they just went away. I got up one day and they were fading and then a day or two later they were completely gone.

They came back

Years later, as an adult and in recovery from alcohol and drug abuse for a fair amount of time, I woke up one morning to find my arms and legs covered with hives.

I went right to the doctor and got no help at all. I can’t even remember what he prescribed (although I know it wasn’t anything fun like phenobarbital), but I remember him shaking his head about what causes this condition. The truth is that in many cases a cause is never identified. Especially in cases of chronic urticaria like mine.

This was in the late 1990s and my partner at the time had his first computer. He immediately went online and discovered that anti-histamines were being used to successfully treat the symptoms of urticaria. Claritin was still only available as a prescription drug at the time and I remember having to fight with that doctor to get him to write me the prescription. He didn’t believe it would help. I didn’t care what he believed.

I got my Claritin and guess what?

It worked

Like a dream. Like a charm. Like a silver bullet. Like magic. Within half an hour the hives vanished. True, they came back in about twelve hours but I took another Claritin and, bang, gone again.

That bout lasted for a bit over a year and got me to New York City where my second roommate, a cardiac unit nurse at Mt. Sinai, was able to keep me in Claritin until the hives went away. Hives do that, I have learned, they just show up and last for two to nine months or longer and then they go away.

I still don’t know why but who cares as long as the anti-histamines work and now they’re all available over-the-counter.

They’re baaaaack

My best friend, Robert, is convinced that this bout of hives is due to unacknowledged stress over losing my job. Meh. Maybe. I do suspect I’m more wound up about being unemployed than I’m allowing myself to admit right now. But given my history with chronic urticaria, I figure it’s just another bout that will go away when it’s ready.

However, this time around I was taking a prescription proton pump inhibitor after an endoscopy earlier in the summer found I have a hiatal hernia and accompanying acid reflux.

It turned out that the proton pump inhibitor was also inhibiting my anti-histamines and for about two weeks there it was like I was 13 and covered with hives again. Ok, not exactly. This time I didn’t think I just needed to calm down or anything. But it was pretty awful until I reached out to my primary care doctor and the gastroenterologist and stopped taking the proton pump inhibitor. We found a workaround for that and the Claritin went back to doing its magic.

Now what?

I keep taking the Claritin every 12 hours until I find that after 12 hours I don’t have any hives. Then I quit until the next time.

And I keep doing my stretches and meditation in the morning. I keep mentoring the young women who count on me. I keep hanging out too late on Monday nights with friends. I keep seeing really great movies with my partner not to mention other deeply enjoyable activities. I keep sending out resumes and going for interviews. I’m an atheist who prays, so I keep doing that, too. I keep asking for help and picking up the phone when someone else is asking me for help. I keep staying up too late and sleeping in while I still can. I keep writing. And writing. And reading. And writing.

So, you, you keep writing, too, because I’m counting on you.

© Remington Write 2019. All Rights Reserved

See? Counting on you!