Happy Halloween my little hivites!

Whew, my wife and I have been totally busy (working like 14 hour days) trying to get moved in, remodeling, repairing, cleaning and all sorts of things. I have barely had time to blog, and I have only crept around the forum as of recent (although I haven’t posted there lately, I have read each post and hope to catch up soon).

We absolutely love our house, and we have been painting, repairing, and all sorts of things. It has taken forever, however, the house is starting to look really great on the outside (almost like a new one). I have only re-done 1 room on the inside so far, and I have done a lot of painting on the outside (the shutters, doors, etc.), plus a few repairs.

I can’t wait to do more remodeling, and at some point I may try to take pics of some things I have done and post them so you can see what I’ve done.

I have had some crazy things happen during all of this work. One day I decided to pressure wash the entire outside of the house (it is white siding). While I was doing it, I got stung by a bee in the ear. I was a little worried that I might go into a crazy reaction or something (considering my wacky immune system), but luckily I didn’t (it sure hurt though).

I also got stuck on my roof for a while (hehe). I was getting up there because our ridge vent (that’s the metal looking thing that tops a person’s house) seems to be leaking a bit.

So when I got up there, the shingles were wet from recent rain, and I almost slipped off. I was lying flat on my back holding on my roof for dear life, afraid to move because each time I did, I slid a bit. Plus I hate heights with a passion (they just freak me out).

Add to that the fact that the ladder I was using wasn’t nearly tall enough (I barely made it off/on the roof), and I was stuck up there for like 10 minutes holding on for dear life.

My wife kept laughing so hard she was crying. I was like, “Stop laughing at me, I am being serious….I am about to fall off of this dang roof!”  Meanwhile my wife kept laughing and saying, “Oh my gosh, I am so sorry, what can I do to help, I am trying to stop laughing,  ha ha ha, hehehe…”

It was funny though looking back, and I made it off safely. I then learned to put the ladder in the back of my truck so it can reach better next time (which worked out to be a great idea). And I was right, a few nails have backed out on the vent, and I will repair it later this week. 

Update on the Hives Situation

The hives have actually been quite a bit better, although I still have them. I have had a few itchy attacks, but they were very light, and I have even been sweating a bit, which is a treat.

I think being able to really focus and work extremely hard has helped. I was so tired one day, I literally didn’t have the energy to have a hives attack! I have even had a few days that I didn’t even get prickly, and instead just sweat a bit. 

Plus I think the hot weather, combined with my extreme focus on the work has made the hives less intense. I love it! I am optimistic about being able to really manage the hives way better here, and so far it seems to be true.

Well, that just about wraps everything up. I hope everyone has a very safe and itch-free Halloween! Be safe, and don’t do anything crazy!

Well, after over a month of anticipation hoping that the house deal would go through, my wife and I are proud owners of our very first home! We absolutely love it, and we could not be more happy with it.

We closed on the house on October 2nd, and began moving that day. I was without internet connection for a few days, so I couldn’t blog. Plus we were super busy moving all of the boxes, cleaning, unpacking, etc. As you can imagine, it has been very crazy. Moving is a chore, and that is for sure.

The house itself is awesome. It has 3 bedrooms and 3 baths. It is a ranch style with an upstairs and a complete downstairs with a garage. It has so much room compared to our old 1 bedroom apartment (we felt like canned sardines). It also has a very big back yard (the lot is almost an acre).

Also, it does not have any carpet at all (it is all engineered hardwood, hardwood laminate, and laminate flooring). So if dust mites were ever an issue, that should take care of that.

This has been a dream of mine for years, and my wife and I feel so very blessed to have finally realized our dream of owning our own home. It is truly amazing. It was just really odd because we made an offer, and I found out the day before my birthday that they accepted the offer, and the closing date was on my mother’s birthday. Funny how things workout sometimes.

How My Cholinergic Urticaria Has Been Treating Me

The hives are still here (of course). They have been bothering me some, but luckily I have had periods of relief. For instance, it was nice and cool during the closing (which only lasted about 45 minutes), so that was great.

However, during the move I did have some nasty hives attacks. The couch in particular was very heavy and hard to move, and I did get an attack while straining with that. So moving proved to aggravate my hives quite a bit.

In addition, cleaning yesterday brought on another attack. It got rather muggy inside, and before I knew it I was dealing with the itchy prickly feeling, which always seems to frustrate me and put me in an aggravated mood.

Update on the Hard Water Experimentation

After bathing with soft water for several weeks, I have decided to abandon the experiment, and cancel the whole soft water idea as a means to stop the hives. I have bathed using softened water (distilled) for so long, and it did nothing to help my attacks.

I still had plenty of attacks while moving, etc. Luckily, the water here does not seem to be as bad as it was in the apartment, so I am relieved at that. But at this point, I think I can safely say that the water wasn’t the cause of the hives. Therefore, I will start to take regular showers now that I am away from the old water.

I am a bit bummed though, as the soft water idea did give me a shred of hope.  With cholinergic urticaria, hope is the best thing besides a cure (for me anyway).

At this point I feel as if I have nearly exhausted every potential environmental or allergy issue. I really don’t have any other ideas or experiments to help the cholinergic urticaria, other than to just deal with it.

I hope and pray that I won’t have to deal with this for the rest of my life. It is truly annoying and frustrating. It has affected my career, my personal life, my habits, etc. But I continue to push forward daily, having some good days, some not so good days. All in all, I feel blessed and thankful for what I do have…hives or no hives.

In the last post, I showed some more pictures of the hard water, and also talked about scrubbing my skin with the exfoliating pad. I wanted to update about this whole experience.

Well, if you remember, I had this strange white build-up on my skin, which I believed to be hard water residue, along with dead skin cells and soap scum. So my wife helped me take another bath with distilled water, and also scrubbed me thoroughly.

In hindsight, I think we scrubbed a little too hard. We scrubbed my skin so hard to get off the residue, that afterwards, my skin was itching me to death. I think I really irritated it. It wasn’t “hives” type itching, but just general itching.

It felt really uncomfortable, and if I could go back in time, I wouldn’t have scrubbed it that hard. In fact, it put me in a rather bad mood all day. I got in one of those, “I hate these hives, why me???” type of moods.

Anyway, I put on some of my generic lotion, which really doesn’t work well. It tends to not absorb into the skin, and didn’t really moisturize well. I decided that I needed something better.

So I did some research online for a really good brand of lotion or emollients. I know that lotion won’t cure cholinergic urticaria, but I am always on the lookout for anything safe that can lesson symptoms and make my skin feel better.

After some research, I found that a brand named “Eucerin” was a good brand. It even had one review of someone who uses it who apparently gets a prickly type hives as well. It had excellent reviews on Amazon.com. So I decided I would go to the local supermarket and pick up some. The stuff certainly isn’t cheap. It cost $7.99 for an 8 oz. bottle (while most other brands would cost only about $4-5).

What Was the Eucerin Lotion Like? Is it Worth It?

So I gave it a shot, since it really had great reviews. When I got home, I immediately put some on. It is very thick, kind of like an ointment rather than a lotion. It rubs into the skin very well, and felt as if it was really good stuff.

After I applied it, I could immediately sense that it was much better quality than my old generic lotion. I guess you get what you pay for, as this was more expensive.

The interesting thing is that it made my skin feel very moist and cool, which is great. Not only that, it has helped dramatically with my skin quality, and yes, even my hives (although it isn’t a cure).

Instead of my skin feeling all dry and “icky,” it feels moisturized and cool now (without feeling too greasy). Not only that, but it has pushed back my hives sensitivity dramatically. Instead of having an attack right away, it seems as if my heat threshold is much higher with this cream.

The reason I found this brand is because I was googling a good lotion to use with dry skin or eczema. As it turned out, some people even said this brand helped clear most of their dry flaky skin and eczema. It is a frequent referred brand by dermatologists.

So the moral of the story is this: I would recommend anyone with cholinergic urticaria to find a great skin moisturizer. This is one great brand that I would recommend 100%. It is kind of pricey, but to me it is worth its price. It won’t cure your hives (most likely), but it can make your skin so much more comfortable, and may lessen the reactiveness or threshold of your CU. But always follow doctors orders over any advice I give.

Update on Showers and Hard Water

I have still been on my regimen of taking showers only with distilled water. I also changed soaps to a moisturizing soap (by dove), which replaces my terrible drying dial soap. So this too with the lotion is helping my skin look and feel amazing.

I think the Eucerin company makes a cleanser for the body, and I may look in to that at some point, because they make great products. But as of right now, the dove sensitive skin soap is a great product too.

I plan to continue taking the distilled water baths. It feels so much better, and I can now do it with just 1 gallon of water. In fact, I have even considered doing this for a month or two more just to see if the soft water does anything (before buying a water softener). I only bathe about 2-3 times per week with this method.

So far, I still have had a few prickles, but my skin seems to be slowly improving, especially since applying the new lotion and newer soap. Only time will tell if I can completely overcome the hives by using purified water and lotion.

Well that about does it in terms of updating on the hives.