Cholinergic Urticaria (heat Hives)

Oh boy.. It's sad to see you guys going thru this as my son (2 year old) just started to have the hives when taking a bath or wash his hand in warm water.. Or some times when he start playing with his toys and got a little warm and he start to have the hives.. But the problem is, he is mostly itchy on his scalps, even when I don't see anything on his body he would stll scratch his head at night and tell us he is itch and sleepless.. After reading all of you guys problem breaks my heart as it seems like not curable, but controllable with medication or homeopath, but my son is too young to have those medication yet.. So that really drives me crazy. Can you guys let me know how when you first noticed and at what age did you guys start to have the uc?


Edit: the little bumps and redness usually disappear within a few hours, is that true with you guys too? But as you get hot, it will come right back out?

My cu started very young also. I think the most difficult thing about growing up with it is that so many people don't understand it. My advise is to make sure your sons teachers and caregivers know what it is. I have not so great memories of being in p.E. Class in about the 6th grade, and having my gym teacher make me keep running because he thought I was just trying to get out of finishing the run. Alot of times adults don't believe childern. I have also read that for some people taking a hot shower in the morning provents attacks durring the day. That doesn't work for me but maybe will for your son. When I break out it lasts about 15-30 min,but can comeback within about an hour if I get hot again.

Sorry to hear that.. I guess my son will soon go thru what everyone here has gone thru.. One questions though, does it always happen? Or is there a period of time that is inactive and you can get as hot as having a fever and still don't have any symptoms or hives? Or is it pretty much any day every day throught out your life type of thing? Just like to know if it will be inactive for a few month or maybe years and then come back again for a period of time and goes away for another while. Sorry.. I am new at this and my doctor hasn't really said anything.. But looking at my son when we bath him and wash him he gets inchy and bumps.

I'm a nursing student so I have read a little about it. From what I understand from talking to my doctor and what i've read. Cu is an allergic condition. What happens is that your son has an allergy to something. Mine is any type of weed. And when he comes in contact with this allergin, his body releases histamine. At that time he does not break out in hives but it creates the conditions his body needs so that whenever he gets heated up he gets the hives. So for me I can't get totaly away from my allergins so I have to take an antihistimine to lower the amount of histamine my body produces, and thus prevent the hives. Depending on what your son is allergic to he might have months out of the year where he might be symptom free, and then have a period where it gets worse. Just like pollen season, if that was his allergin. So there is hope. I know it sounds kinda of confusing but that is how it was explained to me. I didn't know what I was allergic to until I was allergy tested, because the hives happen anytime after I come in contact with my allergin.

Ahh..Thanks jadymc81, that actually helped me a lot! Since he hasn't done the allergin test, but from what you have said, that sure sounded better than breaking out in hives all the time thru out his life.. So now I have better understanding so I will see if I can find out what he is allergic to and try to minmize that to see if that will help.. Once again thank you for your input on the situation and I really appreciated!

Happy holidays!

It is such a relief to finally find some other people with these 'breakouts'. I have had this for as long as I can remember.. And i'm 28. It happens when I exercise, sometimes if I get embarassed, change temps.. Like go from cool to hot.. What really rips is being in the gym and getting this. Just last week, I was walking and I started getting the hives. I had to lie down b/c I thought I was going to pass out. After this goes away, I get a headache, sometimes a migraine. I wish I could find something that would help this. I haven't really tried anything lately. Any suggestions?
Oh.. And once, I did faint with this... I could go on and on.......

I just wanted to add that when I was walking last week, I was walking on a treadmill at a pace of about 3.5 on an incline of 4%. Just wanted to clarify that I don't just go around walking and get this.
Also, does anyone get a high pulse rate when they get these hives? I have noticed that when I diet and eat good foods, this happens less. But if I eat a lot of junk, it happens more.
In reply to the post above with the 2 year old and the itching scalp: usually, when I get the hives my scalp itches really bad. My arms, legs, stomach usually doesn't itch that much.
I know when I am starting to have a breakout before it actually covers my skin. I just look at my wrists on the underside. I usually have a couple of bumps there, and then it spreads everywhere else.
Oh.. And I also read someones post that when you should actually sweat, you get the hives... I have this problem as well.. I don't sweat either.

My husband has had cholnergic unticaria 20 plus years and some of the research I have done may possible show that many physicians are prescribing the wrong medications. Some research shows that it may not be allergy relation. Here why I think it is not and I would like your input with these questions.
1. Do you have more severity during the winter months?
2. Do you feel during your episode that it is not related to sweating.
3. If you play sports and you work through your episode and you continue playing you feel better and it goes away?

I have some information if I can still find it that points to a clinical trial done by a physician that points to a specific area that gets blocked and does not allow the sweating to occur and this blockage is what causes the reaction not the sweating itself. There is a drug that can be placed in the eye that seemed to relieve patients when they had an episode during the study. If anyone wants me to pull the information I will glady give it to you.This has been a research project for me for many years and I would love any information you can give me on your condition. I want to help anyone I can even though I myself have never experienced it I know it is hard. If I can help let me know. I would also like to survey to know how many suffer from this condition.

I have cu but still try to run regularly. I get the prickly sensation followed by itchiness 5-10 minutes into the run but I soldier through it and doesn't get any worse...In fact, it feels like the itchiness ebbs as the body acclimatizes to the higher temperature (usually about 20 minutes into the run for me).

My thesis is that after a run (especially a long one), the body's histamine level is sufficiently depleted such that you can go through the rest of the day without any flare-ups (which is one reason why I run). But I haven't noticed my cu getting better, and i've been doing this routine for several years now.

Dawng -
i have had cu for approximately 4 years. I have tried all of the drugs prescribed by allergists including all antihistamines and steroids. They did absolutely nothing for me. I have recently read about keeping one's sweat glands active in order to fight off episodes. I attempt to sweat everyday and it seems easier to break the episodes by doing this. I am typically hives free after 5-10 minutes of sweating. When I skip workouts it is harder to sweat and my episodes take longer to get through. I agree that this may not be an allergy to a specific allergen. I have tried giving up foods thinking it was a food allergy without much success. I would be interested in any additional information you have. I do think cu is worse in the fall and winter. I am hives and itch free for approximately 24hrs after a good sweat. If I go any longer the same process begins all over again.

Dawng... I would love any info that you have. I hate this!

1)i don't think it's any worse during the winter... It's just always bad...
I started taking the claritin on sunday and noticed a small improvement... The hives aren't itchy like they normally are..
2)sometimes I feel like it's not related to sweating.. Like if I get nervous or embarrassed....
3)sometimes when I keep going (while working out) it just fades away.. But with the heart racing,(feels like it's beating out of my chest) sometimes it's hard to keep going...

I'm not sure if this is related.. But I have read about this cu and it said in some extreme cases, there has been vascular collapse... Well... I have had my renal artery and branches stented b/c they were closing up...
(renal artery stenosis)
have you read any on the vascular collapse?

My research was done at karger.Com under clinical and investigative dermatology
title cu a new pathogenic concept: hypohidrosis due to interference with the delivery of sweat to the skin surface.

In the abstract 2 patients acquired hypohidrosis (less sweating) in the winter due to superficial obstruction of the acrosyringium (eccrine gland secretory coil) was the suspected cause. But these two patients did not have these symptoms during the summer only in the winter. In the physicians conclusion they thought less sweating was due to the occlusion (trap) of superficial sweat ducts that becomes exacerbated in winter when sweating is not a frequent event.

Also look up acetylcholine (ach) it is a chemical transmitter in the central nervous system (cns) as well as in the parasympathetic nervous system. Ach is an ester of acetic acid and choline with chenical formula. I think this is the area in which more study needs to be done.

Http://en.Wikipedia.O rg/wiki/acetylcholine

dermatology 2002;204:173-178 (doi: 10. 1159/000057877)
key words cholinergic urticaria and hypohidrosis
my search on google was cholinergic urticaria treatment

drug that was used was atropine eye drops.
This is the drug used before eye examinations to dilate the eye. My husband has never tried this drug. I do not recommend this since I have not found anymore information on patients who have been prescribed this.

Also another treatment I researched was located at
www.Ncbi.Nlm.Nih.Gov
cu treatment with ketotifen
pmid 6764233

i did this research back in 2004. I am in the processing of researching now and if I find anymore information I will certainly let you guys know.

A good search would be cu clincal trials or cu new treatment. Let me know what you find out as well.

This is great to find others with the same condition as i. I am a 24 year old male who started having the intense pricking sensations and hives about 2 months ago. I have always suffered greatly from airborne allergies (hayfever, etc) but this is my first real experience with hives. I was on loratadine (claritin) for airborne allergies when this whole ordeal started and have recentlty switched to allegra 180. The breakouts now seem to be less frequent but just as intense when they do happen.

I am an engineering grad student, so daily stress is a common and unavoidable part of life.

A campus doctor suggested "sweating the histamines out" in a hot shower in the morning, but this does not seem to trigger the response for me. I am interested to try jogging in the morning and evening and suffering through it until it eases off, but i'm slightly concerned with the possibility of anaphylaxis. I have read this is sometimes related and I have recently also been wheezing more when I work out. Http://www.Aafp.Org/a fp/20011015/1367.Html

dawng, I will post again with the results of my attempts at jogging.

For me...It's not really about the actual bumps or swellling at all...It's just the constant, intense itching pain. It's so bad, it's as if i'm being bitten by a swarm of mosquitoes, and the itching is enveloping my body in waves.

It's gotten so bad, that I can barely function in public, because it seems to arise for me when i'm in social situations...So i've had to voluntarily end my social life for now until I get this handled...I just got tired of making excuses, and they definitely wouldn't understand if I told them, or they probably would have thought I was lying...Which is twice as worse...So i've just turned my phone off for now.

I've also been a excersise freak, and a gym rat...It's because of this that i've had to stop excersising, and i've gained about 25 pounds. I guess my body could be worse...My stomach's still flat and my arms are still big, but i've most defnitely lost the definition i've once had.

Anyway, i'd like to see if anyone else can sympathize with the following...


1) I haven't been able to pinpoint it exactly...But whenever I eat spicy, tangy foods, such as hot sauce...My hair starts to itch really badly...In fact I thought that my hair was part of the problem, so I decided to shave it all off, to see if it would help...It hasn't helped that much, but there has definitely been a difference.

2) does anyone else have a seemingly constant tingly itching feeling in their hands? It's really intense...As i'm typing this right now, my hands itch for no reason.


I've been putting up with this pain since about december 2004, and it's getting in the way of my life...

Can anyone else vouch for me here?

3) does anyone else get hives or experience the intense itching feeling from wearing something that might be tight...?

I.E. A tanktop undershirt(wifebeater)...Under armour sportswear

I have noticed wearing tight clothing does make this condition worse. I agree that "sweating out" the histamine is the only thing that works consistently. The more I workout and suffer the itching the better the condition gets. I have tried almost everything and sweating is the only way to deal with this. Atleast I get a day free of itching and hives after a good workout. If I am going to be in public and know the attack may come I make sure to sweat prior to this and it helps dramatically. The more I workout...I sweat easier and quicker and the itching is much less. If I skip workouts...It takes longer to sweat and the itching is ridiculous.

My story & successes in beating cold induced urticaria or cold temperature hives:

hi, I am a 36 year old male and decided I needed to find a place to tell people of my success in beating cold temperature hives or cold-induced urticaria. About 2 years ago, I started occasionally then frequently breaking out in hives whenever I was in a situation where my skin temperature went from warm to cool. At first I thought the problem was the detergent that we used to wash our laundry, but after many different brands including using no detergent, there was no success in eliminating the hive problem. I would get cold induced hives more in the winter time.. When I would go outside to do some work. I would first start getting tingling feeling around the back-side of my ears, then my abdomen and the inside of my thighs were the next target. Eventually, it would cover the sides of my lower chest, legs and arms. The only thing I could do at the time was to get into a warm shower and they would stop getting worse then slowly go away. If a shower was not available, I would use over the counter benedryl creme, but that would make me drowsy if I used too much (but it stopped them from getting worse). In the summer time, I would get them if I went swimming... But in the cases of swimming, the hives would start out where ever there was "pressure" on my skin.. I.E.... Under my waist-band on the swim trunks.. And where I had been wearing socks that may have created pressure on my ankles prior to taking the swim. One day I got the hives under the waist elastic of my swim trunks so bad, they started to form together and make one big hive that was almost 3/4 of an inch high! Yes, my fellow urticaria sufferers, I had enough!


So those were the symptoms and the conditions... Now let me tell you a little more about my back ground and how I finally beat cold temperature hives:

since my marriage 14 years ago, I have slowly gained weight. I am 6' 2" tall and at my worse point I was 238 pounds. I also suffered a bout with polynodial cyst during my freshman year at college and after 5 surgeries, it still never healed! That's right- 16 years of an open wound at the top of the crack my butt! I true pain in the @ss. I also had a bad habit of eating lots of cereal (and with it milk, of course) and lots of ice cream.. I would think nothing of eating a half gallon of ice cream every two days. I have also suffered knee soreness and back pain from time to time. I was in pretty sad shape. I would also get hives almost every night on my arm or legs that may have gotten exposed to the air due to covers/sheets coming off. Thats the background of my poor health and diet. Moving on....


4 months ago, (about october of 2005) I decided it was time to make a change.. The cold temperature hives, poor fitness and diet were all adding up and it was time to make a lifestyle change-- if not to benefit me, to benefit my lovely wife and 4 children. I joined a website called www.Peertrainer.Com and found a few common folks that needed to loose weight and started to stick to it. Needless to say, not even 1 week went by and I immediately felt a difference in my body... I was no longer fatigued in the afternoons... I wasn't having crazy ups and downs with my blood sugar levels, and best of all... No more hives!!! Gone... I haven't had hives in over 3 months now and I have lost a total of 20 lbs. I have been working as a tile contractor even in the middle winter, and not even a hint of hives when I am outside in someones driveway cutting tile! Oh.... And after 16 years, my polynodial cyst has finally healed! I only have a small bowl of cereal in the morning with 1% milk and I hardly ever eat ice cream- perhaps at a birthday, but that's it. I really think the high sugar and lactose in my diet was the catalyst for the hives. I can never be certain, but it was the biggest change in my diet.


I want to add that diet would have been one of the last things I would have thought would cause cold temperature hives on me. The diet solution may only work for some people, but I hope that some of you that have been suffering from cold induced hives will strongly consider closely watching what you eat - or better yet - seek some advice from your doctor or dietician. I now eat very little sugars, starches and milk products. And I have not suffered from hives at all since the start of the diet and excersize change. At the very least, try cutting out dairy, sugars and breads from your diet for a week or so and see if it helps the hives.

Now I can't say that my symptoms, conditions and solution may help any of you, but I felt I owed it to someone to post my story. The past 2 years with hives has been extremely annoying and if I can get out my success in beating cold temperature hives, then hopefully someone else will benefit. Please drop me a note at nxtmaster at msn dot com if I can help answer any questions or provide any support.


Thank you and best of luck!


~fellow cold induced urticaria sufferer (no more!)

New to the forum and have found that many people suffer from what I have bee with for over a year now. My dermatologist could not pin point the condition and basically told me that my skin had just changed its tone to a more red one. Yeah right. Basically, what happens to me is during exercise, changes from cold air to hot, or during an embarrassing moment, my face becomes very flush, hot, and tingly. During extreme weight training or long hot showers, the flushness and blotches break out on my neck, chest and shoulders. I had my first case of itchy hot legs the other day. I've done some research on my own to find that for cholinergic urticaria some patients take hydroxyzine hydrochloride (atarax, anxanil, hyzine) basically, this medication is used as an antihistamine and an anti-anxiety medicine. I have taken claritine in the morning, and before workouts at the gym and have seen no results from it. I need something more. I have an apointment this week with a different allergy doctor. If I find out any new information, i'll be sure to share it. Through research of my own, I have come to believe that this condition could be partly due to anxiety and stress. Or possibly quite the opposite, the condition causes anxiety and stress. Its a viscous cylcle for me. The flushness comes and causes me to become aware of it and embarrassed which causes more flushing and tingling. I've recently bought some books on controlling stress and anxiety, hopefully they will help with this problem to some degree. I'm glad I found this forum to share on. I'll check back soon.

I heard about this medicine which cures conditions which are similar, if not exactly like, cholinergic urticaria, or just hives in general...I'm a little skeptical about this...


Recently i've been taking cyclosporine, which was perscribed by my allergy doctor...The hives and welts have all but disappeared, which is good...But it was never really the problem for me.

The itching however, hasn't died down that much, and still feels really bad sometimes...It's still intense when i'm out in the sun, and when I get stressed...

I know that this condition is vulnerable, because when I took prednisone...The itching completely disappeared for a long while...And it felt great...But then as I stopped taking it...The itching came back in full force, and just as intense as before I started taking it. I know that if I find the right medicine...I'll be rid of it for good.

Anyway, if anyone knows anything about cyclosporine...Or lacitrex...Your input will be greatly appreciated.