Hello everyone, I'm new here.
My name is matt and I live in Atlanta with my wife.
This is going to be long but please be patient...
It all started about 2 years ago, I suddenly started to get hives on my knees, feet, and hands. Big fat ones, looked like tons of mosquito bites. The hives continued for a few weeks and started to appear on my arms and chest. I went to the doctor and they said I had a sinus infection and that was causing the hives as well. I took the antibiotics and steroids they gave me and the hives went away, for about a day or two. After this visit, I went to the doctor about 4 times for hive problems, I'd wake up and would be covered in big fat hives (some as big as half dollars) all over my body, including my face. Each time they had a new idea on what it could be, and once they even sent me to the hospital because they feared my blood pressure was too low. After they put me in a stretcher with O2 and rolled me into an ambulance, drove me across the street (literally) to the hospital and took about 15 blood samples, The ER doc said there was no reason I should have gone to the ER and still, no explination for the hives.
So, they sent me to a dermatologist. He told me I was alergic to the excedrin I had been taking for my head aches. He told me to take a claratin every morning. 2 weeks go by and the hives seem to be getting worse. I couldn't afford one more co-pau and certainly not a $200 ambulance ride across the street so I decided to try to do my own investigating. Making notes of what I eat/come in contact with/etc. It was hard though because it seemed I had the hives constantly.
One week they seemed to subside for a few hours when I came home from work with horrible allergy problems. I took 2 claratin and went to sleep. When I woke up I mustve had about 10,000 hives all over my body. EVERYWHERE, the worst case yet. I decided I had to be alergic to something in claratin. I started doing my research on ingerrdients and came to the conclusion it may have had something to do with an ingredient called 'povidone' which is in both excedrin and claratin. I stopped taking both, stuck with tylenol (still the only medicince that won't break me out, advil, excedrin, claratin, ibeuprofen all do).
So, about a year goes by and I am hive free. All is well with the world, until about 2 weeks ago. My hands broke out in tiny, close together, very itch hives. They look like poison ivy but are NOT fluid filled. I also got patches on my arms and some on my eye lid. For the past 2 weeks I have had these small itchy hives on my hands, arms, and face only. I have not taken any new medicine so I am stumped.
If anyone has ANY recomendations or have had similar situations and may be able to offer up some helpful advice please do. I am going crazy here.
Thanks so much for your time.
Matt.