Hi!

ok, so i have been reading this board for months and it was so great to know that i wasn't strange and that other people had these hives for no apparent reason. i'm going to tell you my story and then i'll tell you the meds my allergist put me on that have gotten me to 98% hive free!

in the fall of 2004 i started having swollen and itchy eyelids. i thought it was from a 2nd cat i had just adopted but that seemed weird b/c i had never had problems with the 1st cat. i went to visit my parents at the end of december and woke up the 1st morning i was there w/ my right eye swollen shut! so, i went to the allergist that my father uses and he told me it was periorbital angioedema and prescribed clarinex every a.m. and zyrtec every p.m. it seemed to work!

the next week i was on vacation and started getting red itchy spots on my hands, then my feet, then my ankles, then my arms, and etc. until it moved around my entire body. i thought it was bugbites and then when it spread i thought i was allergic to one of the meds the doctor put me on so i stopped taking them and the next a.m. my left eye was swollen shut and the hives hadn't gone away at all! as you all know, i was miserable!

when i came back from vacation i started keeping a log of what gave me hives, it was cold, anything tight that i wore (my bra???), and exercise mostly. plus i'd wake up in the a.m. and have those surprise hives. anyway, a few weeks after that i did this really intense workout and got hives EVERYWHERE, chin to toes. then my period started and they got worse and worse and worse b/c they just stayed put and didn't travel around like the others had.

so i started on prednisone and even then i still had hives! my allergist diagnosed me w/ chronic urticaria (b/c i had the angioedema for so long) and told me that i am "unstable at the cellular level." so, over the course of the past couple of months my allergist and i have experimented and found something that works for me. i'm on claritin, zyrtec and 600mg of zantac per day. when i was just on those i still had hives, not as bad as they had been but they were still there and still ithcy.

a lot of you have mentioned those meds BUT i haven't read anything on this board about Accolate. ACCOLATE is an asthma drug actually (i don't have asthma), it is non-steroidal, and it blocks a different class of histamines than claritin/zyrtec and zantac. i don't know why it worked but it did. within 2 weeks my hives were mostly gone. i'll still get one here and there. when i have my period i get a few extra but they are bearable and actually respond to cortisone cream or something and stop itching. so, if you haven't already tried it ask your doctor!

also, and i think i have read about this on here, my allergist had told me that if the accolate didn't work we were going to try doxeprin. it's an antidepressant that works as a great antihistamine too but it can make you really sleepy and gain a lot of weight. luckily the accolate worked for me but it's always good to have options.

for those of you who want my exact dosage info, here it is:

a.m.
claritin - 20mg
zantac - 300mg
accolate - 20mg

p.m.
zyrtec - 10mg
zantac - 300mg
accolate - 20mg

good luck!

I haven't tried anything extra to anti-histamine + H1-receptor antagonist. I've only just been put on zantac, and that's because I printed a page off the web, listing the different combinations of drugs used to bring CIU under control. Accolate is listed, but suggested as alternative to H1-receptor, not as well as. So - I'm feeling a little excited!! I'm due to go to my GP in a coupla weeks, so I shall ask if he would be willing to give it a try. I did think when I was reading the list off the web, that Accolate sounded interesting cos it sounds a bit like chocolate!! I forgot to take my drugs last night, as was v v tired :yawn: - and this morning the hives are HUGE!!! :eek:
Rogold - your story is so similar to mine - apart from the eyes swelling shut - mine are swollen and puffy now every morning, but they do go back to normal in an hour or so. I've been suffering with the hives since Oct 03, and angioedema since this time last year. My forehead, lips, chin and knees have swollen, then I was seeing double for a couple of weeks which was scary - docs put down to a virus, or possibly angioedema affecting a particular eye muscle. Later last year my feet would swell and go black, then I had a break from the hives in Nov/Dec whilst I had a rotten chest infection and had anti-biotics 3 times - but well - now they're back with a vengeance!! I did a bit of light weeding in the garden a couple of weeks ago - but in the evening both my hands swelled up to huge proportions and now my hubby won't let me do any gardening until my hives go - now that makes me miserable as I love a good potter in the garden! Sorry to whinge!! It's so good to find I'm not alone - I don't know anyone else like me with this - there's no way I'd go out in a bikini this summer - I look like I've got some awful infectious disease! I hate these flippin spots! Not spots - more like insect bites gone wrong! I get facinated by how they grow! I see one appear - say, on my wrist - and then it gets bigger and another one will start and another - sometimes they make a big circle and join up - sometimes a big line. Anyone else get this? Wierd city :dizzy: !!

ttddttdd and anyone else who has tried singulair.... accolate is a different drug so you never know. it might be worth trying but obviously we all know that there is no universal drug that will help all of us. and antiinflamatories are definitely hive causing...they make your veins "leakier." i know that they make my angioedema act up a lot.

lumpylou, definitely try a combination of drugs. as a doctor's daughter i learned early that the more the better! i hope you find something to help you out.

i've been working out really hard lately and have a few hives here and there but if i had done this a couple months ago i would have been miserable so i guess i've made some progress. i'm really considering going to medical school to be a dermatologist/allergist once i'm done law school. don't you all wonder why there aren't any dermatologists/allergists? although my allergist did a pretty good job in comparison to the 85 y/o dermatologist who told me to just take benedryl!

well, seems that either my hives just went on vacation for a while and i thought it was the accolate OR i'm exercising so much right now that my histamine is overloading all the medication i'm on. i actually think it's the second option because even now they are still better than before the accolate.

so i'm in a fix. since all this hive stuff started i gained over 15lbs from being on steroids for a while and then stopping my exercise routine. i'm getting married in october (if my fiance can put up with my hives for that long) so i already wanted to lose 15-20lbs. so...that is why i have increased my exercise and managed to lose 8 or so lbs. but, my allergist wants me to take doxepin and i just can't bear to gain any more weight. i also don't want to stop exercising.

so this week my random hives here and there have turned into regular chronic urticaria, exercise urticaria, pressure urticaria as far as where my clothes pinch or my ring sits, AND since it's finals time for me i am constantly stressed out which i'm sure can't be helping.

i did a ton of urticaria research this weekend and i'm calling my doc tomorrow to see what he says about what i found. i'm also going to see a dermatologist in a couple of weeks to see if he has any different remedies. i hate this.