So this ordeal started in spring. I've always had seasonal allergies, so the fact that I was itchy wasn't terribly unusual. But soon I started getting red spots on my hands and feet. It kept getting worse until I looked like a giraffe my hives were so bad. The doc did some blood tests to see if they could rule out it being viral, which they did. After a lot of Benadryl, it calmed down. Then it ramped back up over the next week until I was a giraffe again. About a month after the first giraffe instance, I went back to the doc (not my regular gp) and he put me on a 15 day steroid pill regimen. It made it mostly go away, but it's been slowly starting to ramp back up. I'm having trouble pinpointing triggers. I think fruit is one, but Ive cut it out and I'm still breaking out. I've changed our household cleaners to hypo allergenic. This is getting out of hand and all antihistamines really fuck me up so just constantly taking Benadryl isn't a good option. Anyone here have either suggestions or experience with this kind of thing?
There are blood tests for some types of allergies - see if your doctor(s) can order some of those? I'm mostly only familiar with environmental allergy triggers, not food allergy triggers. Nevertheless, miscellaneous suggestions in no particular order: - Get a dust mite cover for your mattress and pillow, and run all the bedclothes through a wash in the hottest cycle you can get your washing machine (or the laundromat washing machine) to produce. - If you can bribe someone else to vacuum every carpeted surface, or if you have the spoons to vacuum every carpeted surface, do that as soon as possible, and then weekly after that. - Do you use latex gloves for cleaning things? - Saturate as many surfaces of your bathroom as possible in a bleach-containing cleaner, to kill mold/mildew. Leave it like that for a half an hour, and then scrub everything visible off. (Or get someone else to do that.) Replace the shower curtain. Avoid using bathroom rugs for a while. - A HEPA air filter (yes, look for that specific acronym) running on high blast in your bedroom/any other room you spend significant time in will cut down on airborne allergens significantly. - This should go without saying, but pets are a major source of allergen problems. There's also something called an "elimination diet" that is useful for pinpointing food allergies. Usually, an elimination diet involves eating an extremely limited selection of foods for several weeks, seeing if that helps, and then slowly reintroducing possibly-problematic foods until something happens. If you think your allergies are food-related, this may be worth trying despite the time, expense, and energy involved.
There are prick tests you can get done (usually on your arm or back) that will cover a wide range of potential allergens, and lock down what you're allergic to and approximate severity. I got one done as a child, another as a teen, and as a teen, those results were used to set up a round of allergy shot therapy for me. That's a slow burn, a couple of years most of the time, but I started seeing the difference after like a year. I went from hellishly severe seasonal allergies to mild/unnoticeable seasonal allergies. It's less of am immediate solution, but if your insurance covers it, I recommend it a lot. Non-plant ones are less familiar to me. My food allergies give me an itchy mouth more than anything else, which is pretty immediate and obvious. And my seasonal/animal allergies are mostly reflected via asthma. Hm. Maybe a daily tracker of food/medicine/physical condition would help with trying to spot trends? And @pixels, I think you said that your brother was allergic to... cockroaches? Do you know how he figured that one out?
Thanks for your replies, guys. It's definitely not dust mites. We've been having a bed bug problem, and so everything has been through the wash/dryer many times and we have a mattress cover. A prick test would be pretty much useless at this time, as pretty much everything that interacts with my skin gives me raised bumps. It seems like I may have to do an elimination diet. But I'm worried about the expense...
You said you changed all your household cleaners to hypoallergenic, but does that including your laundry detergent/fabric sheets? A couple brands set off my so's allergies, and I just stopped using fabric sheets altogether. Switching to a gentler soap and using tons of moisturizer (the Aveeno oats one in particular) also helped, and if you have a tub you might want to try an oatmeal bath (it's anti-inflammatory, so very soothing on stressed-out skin).
they can't do skin tests when allergy symptoms are dermal. I have similar issues, and I take several doses of zyrtec or benadryl (alternating weeks) a day for most of the year. it's actually p funny to see doctors react when I tell them how much benadryl I've had that day. they all have the same reaction: look at me, look at my chart, then look at me again and ask how I'm upright and conscious. (my big sister (typo'd that as bug twice) used to feed me benadryl when I was little to make me be quiet, so now it takes a bigger dose to get the same effect.) I'm going to an allergist monday after next, and I can ask them for you, if you'd like? but they can do a blood test for allergies, so you should probs ask your specialist about that. (if you're not seeing a specialist, go find one asap) like I said, I have similar issues, but to a slightly lesser extent. lush has some good bath/shower stuff for sensitive skin, so I highly rec anything they have w honey (the honey bee bath bombs are fantastic when I'm breaking out in hives). other than that, you can use shampoo as a body wash and it's much gentler on your skin while still getting you clean. also avoid anything w sulfates, as those can be really irritating if you already have hives. dr bronner's soaps are also good for sensitive skin, and those are usually available at whole foods (which is expensive, I know, so you can also order directly from their website) also, do you have a problem w ear infections? bc my allergies make it so I can get swimmer's ear from taking a shower. if so, make up a solution of isopropyl and vinegar and rinse your ears out w that after getting water in your ears, bc that'll kill anything that could cause an outer ear infection unfortunately that's all I got as far as tips for management. I already know that I'm allergic to grass, and I'm going to an allergist bc I just can't deal w the exhaustion from the antihistamines either. the only food allergy I have is poppy seeds (fun fact: that also means I'm allergic to morphine, codeine, cough syrup, opium and heroin) and the juice from fresh tomatoes. all my other allergies are environmental or medications. brother in law is allergic to mushrooms, though, which sucks bc he used to really like them edit: forgot to add shellfish as one of my food allergies, bc it doesn't come up much bc I keep somewhat kosher (at least, as much as I can living in Tx and not in the Jewish neighborhood)
