It Is What it Is

Up & out the door early for Dermatologist appointment

So for anyone that knows me, you know that I have hives pretty much every single day and along with that the occasional swelling of half of my lip, my eyes, one finger...etc. I had hives growing up and my mom would try to figure out what it was by taking away certain foods.  I think we first believed it was anything that was red including spaghetti sauce and then we thought it was bananas. Eventually, I started eating those things again and realized it wasn't the trigger.  I haven't had hives every single day of my life, but they do play a pretty prominent role in my health story.

Before I was diagnosed with diabetes, I had hives for a full year. Basically all of grade twelve I had hives. They were everywhere except for my face. I can remember sometimes they were so itchy it was almost unbearable. I would have to put lots of cream all over my body to prevent myself from itching and at one point I remember the skin being so raw it was disgusting. I hated it. I wore capris when it was warm because the hives on my legs looked awful.   When it went away, I was then getting symptoms of diabetes (I didn't know they were symptoms of diabetes at the time....) I began losing a lot of weight around September 2008 and eventually in March of 2009 I was diagnosed with diabetes and had about every symptom in the book.   No one knows the immediate need to pee unless you've had super high blood sugars - it's awful.

Anyways, I didn't have hives for a couple years and if so, they weren't super memorable.  I got hives in December 2012 because I found out I was allergic to penicillin.  But that doesn't count.   It wasn't until March of last year that I started to get the hives again - full time. The hives were back and not only were hives back but so was my random swelling, something else that I had back in grade 12.

Now, when I had hives before, I was sent to every specialist you can imagine and they mentioned endless amounts of 'diagnosis' ideas, ranging from Rheumatoid Arthritis to Lupus.  So, this time, about a year ago I knew that once I told a medical doctor about my hives I was going to be given the same run around.  Successfully I can say I was right because it's literally been about a year and I still have hives and I have seen another set of specialists including now a haematologist and a dermatologist. They all have different ideas, send me for blood work and come back to tell me I have hives - literarily they say you have urticaria which is a fancy word for 'you have hives.'

I am O.K with this.  I am okay if I just have chronic hives. It's super annoying but after having to go to the haematologist appointment (that scared the crap out of me!) I will make friends with my urticaria. I am lucky because usually my allergy medicine works and I can sense when I am going to get hives or start to swell - I can feel it before it happens.  I also know what triggers hives for me including working out (sometimes) white wine (super sad about that...) and stress (not always).   Even though it's a super vague diagnosis, and after going to a 7:20 a.m appointment (I know right?) only to be told I have hives and then was given a prescription for Reactin (which I already have...) I am going to today just stop worrying about 'what it is' because it just is what it is.