First time Hives!? (me, not DC)

[Schmitty21]

I woke up with hives today! Never had them before in my life. Read up online a little, sounds like the most common cause is a food allergen. The only suspect thing I can think of was I had shrimp yesterday. But I've never been allergic to shrimp or any seafood, or any food for that matter.

Anyone have experince with a food allergy just popping up out of nowhere?

Another thought - just got AF for the first time since DS was born (10 months). Could hormones be playing a part?

They're itchy, but manageable. How weird. I hope they go away soon...

[hillview]

I've had friends in their 40s suddenly develop shellfish allergies. Good luck -- if they don't seem to go away or any trouble breathing go to the ER.
/hillary

[SnuggleBuggles]

The worst is I break out in hives a few times/ year and I suspect food is to blame but I can't figure it out. It's some obscure ingredient bc one if the times I got hives it wAs cheese pizza and then leftovers from a new restaurant. I have found no rhyme or reason to them and it's been several years and several bouts- sorrry!!

Beth

[mommylamb]

It's really awful trying to figure this sort of thing out. I've had two outbreaks of extremely bad hives this year. My doctor (GP) thinks it's some sort of chemical/drug reaction. The second time I got it, I was wearing a new suit from ATL that I hadn't had cleaned yet, and I suspect it was something on the suit that did it to me. But it was really terrible. The first time I had to take steroids, it was so bad. It was also really bad the second time, but I stuck it out because we've been TTC and I was in the 2 week wait time and didn't want to do steroids.

I hope you figure yours out. Yuck.

[Schmitty21]

Thanks ladies. Sounds like the mystery of it all is very common. I've been racking my brain for anything out of the ordinary I ate yesterday, or wore (good call on the ATL suit, mommylamb).

Like I said, the itchiness is mostly manageable. There's a bit of tingling and puffiness on my upper lip though, which is so attractive. I think I'll hold off on an antihistimine as long as I can. I'm still BF and don't want it to affect milk supply.

Life never ceases to throw curveballs at ya. :rolleye0014:

[tiapam]

i get hives occasionally and the first time i am pretty sure it was something in sugar free candy that i ate. i could not find out more because i did not know exactly what was in it. more recently i drank a soda and got hives. the only ingredient that seemed the likely culprit was tartaric acid. a lot of products are using different ingredients than they used to and nowadays new products often have these same new ingredients, so you might want to check stuff you have been eating and drinking a long time to see if the formulation has changed.

[mackmama]

I used to eat calamari without incident and then I became allergic to them out of the blue. I now keep Benadryl on hand because I seem to get hives randomly. I hope you feel better soon.

[MontrealMum]

I've had bad hives 2x in the past 3 years - bad enough to send me to the emergency clinic. I do have a lot of other allergies, so I originally suspected something food related, or chemical/environmental such as a change in formulation in beauty products, super bad mold/pollen etc. But I was oh-so-happy to hear from the doc at the clinic that they could also be stress related! Was I stressed? Um, yeah, I was a new mom balancing work, school, and a kid. I was Rxed some stronger antihistimenes than your typical OTC Benedryl and told to be careful what I ate (um, yeah) and try to avoid stress. Never figured out the trigger either time. I took the meds because I was already on antihistimenes anyways, so my milk supply was already affected.

I only write this not to confound you further, but just to say, yes, be vigiliant about what you eat/wear/put next to your skin, but at the same time don't beat yourself up about trying to find the answer. Because that might not happen. :shrug: Before I had DS the last time I had hives was when I was in h/s.

You do want to watch your breathing to make sure that you don't begin to wheeze. If you do, act quickly!