“Hives - urtication: an itchy skin eruption characterized by weals with pale interiors and well-defined red margins; usually the result of an allergic response to insect bites or food or drugs
www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn”
This is a good definition, but it does fail to mention some of the other symptoms, like eradication of self-esteem, impulses to curse the day you were born, and overwhelming urges to grab any sharp object handy and convert your skin to luggage. Gross, yes, but when you are hived to the max you will quickly see what a great hookup Skelator had.
Mine started in 10th grade. No one is ever really sure what triggers them, but I think they were set off by some impending social event that would force me in to the same room with dangerous exotic creatures known as “girls”. (Fortunately I was able to overcome these social anxieties and received my first kiss only 9 years later (see glass, crushed)) It’s a little fuzzy now, but I do remember lying in bed in my underwear, completely covered in round raised red itchy skin, wondering what I had done to offend the Lord. If only I had heeded the nuns warning about self fornication. Ultimately, my parents took me to the emergency room, where a nurse shot me in the butt with benedryl. It knocked the hives down and knocked my butt to sleep.
A couple months later it happened again. Took another shot to the butt, but it worked slower this time. Can’t really remember the chronology, but by the third or fourth outbreak, benydryl was completely worthless. So, They switched me to a tiny sugary pill called Atarax which knocked the hives down and knocked my butt to sleep…(sigh) those were the days.
By the time I got to college, I was breaking out every night. The doctors had no idea why - back scratch tests, blood tests etc. showed no common denominator. One doc suggested I eliminate everything in my diet but water, then slowly add things back in over the course of the month. Yeah, might as well tell me to give up self fornicating. Atarax was no longer functional, so they switched me to a drug called Hismanal. No side effects and controlled the hives - perfect!
Back then I had no cool girlfriend to read those “label thingy’s”, so I was a little alarmed, when in my senior year of college, the doctor told me that he was going to phase me off Hisminal, because of it’s tendency to kill people. Remember kids, always trust your doctor because he does his homework …eventually. Fortunately, there was a new safer drug on the market, called Zyrtec. It works beautifully and has yet to blow up my heart. In fact if Zyrtec ever goes out of business, I’ll just drive off a bridge and call it good.
But what’s caused 14 years of nightly breakouts? My allergist has come up with an interesting theory. At some point my autoimmune system went haywire and started attacking my own body. “So basically, what you are telling me doc, is that I am allergic to my own blood?” Um, well yes.
Ok, that’s a little disheartening, but I’m dealing with it. In the meantime, I come up with some fun anyone can have while in the grips of full Hive agony:
* Take a marker and play connect the hives - hours of entertainment.
* Go to the food court at the mall and sample someone’s taco bell - free lunch every time.
* Show up for work in something revealing like a tank top - always a fast ticket home.
* Try out for a play that needs a leper - you will smoke the competition.
* Self fornicate - hey you paid the fiddler, so you might as well dance.