Hives Start Autonomic Symptoms?

[jackiemxoxo]

Hey everyone, I have not written in a while but I became symptomatic recently after developing hives. I got sick 5 years ago but have slowly recovered. Now, I got hives 2 weeks ago and was on a regiment of prednisone, benadryl and eventually claritin. All the medications seem to make my heart rate worse so i tapered off of them. I saw an allergist who thinks it is an autoimmune response to a virus I probably had in childhood. My dysautonomia is seeming to get worse and I keep getting the hives at night. My heart rate and blood pressure are elevated when I sit or stand. They think my dysautonomia is viral in origin so I am wondering if this is a relapse of sorts. Anyone else deal with hives making their symptoms worse? What could you tolerate as an antihistamine?

[Katybug]

http://forums.dinet.org/index.php?/topic/26124-effects-of-severe-ige-allergies-on-mast-cells-and-autoimmunity/

Hi Jackie,

My immunologic now believes that most of my issues are of a severely allergic nature. All the toxins involved in allergic and mast cell reactions affect the nervous system as well as everything else. I haven't gone a day with hives somewhere on my body in year, including daily hives in my scalp and in the small of my back. I always new I had environmental allergies but until recently, had no idea that I had severe food allergies because mine don't present like you would imagine a food allergy looks like. The link I attached is the recent story of these developments and has link to several articles explaining how severely a person can be affected by allergy. If you have questions please let me know and I'll answer the best I can. This is somewhat new to me too. Hives stink!!!

[jackiemxoxo]

Thanks Katy, my allergist wont even do any allergy testing because he believes my symptoms are more of an autoimmune response than allergy. I almost wish he would though because I have a lot of GI symptoms like you experienced too. He just gave me allegra and an epi pen. He told me that allegra has the least Central Nervous System involvement and said if I did not tolerate that then we could consider xovair in 6 weeks. I feel like I am stuck though with how to handle all these symptoms.

[Katybug]

Maybe showing him these articles may help. One is specific to how IgE allergy contributes to autoimmunity. Regardless, Xolair works by suppressing IgE. It would be nice to know if you have specific allergies especially to foods so you can avoid them. I don't know your financial situation but I'm on SSDI and qualify for the Xolair copay assistance program through the drug company which helps cover some of the expense as the shots are $750+ each and you get them once or twice a month depending on how the doc doses you. Just wanted to let you know that that is an available option if you need it. There are also pretty serious black box warnings for Xolair that need to be considered. I felt like my need was greater than the risk.