So, I have cold urticaria. I have had it for a long time. Basically, I am allergic to getting cold. I know, we are all allergic to the cold, but I am actually allergic to the cold. Sometimes, I forget about it, like yesterday. Then I remember.

Yesterday, all sports were cancelled except golf. I just have to say, golfers never get credit for being as tough as they are. It was COLD!!! Those boys were out there playing golf for over three hours, when you count warm-up. I stayed in my car during the warm up. Then, I followed Tayden’s threesome. It started out at 38 degrees at 5pm and dropped from there. Their hands were suffering. Tayden even took my fluffy, ugly mittens to use between hits, and I put my hands in my pockets. Did I mention that it was COLD!!! The sun set is officially at 7:30, and the boys are still finishing their last hole.

We were all happy to get into warm vehicles. That’s when the fun begins for me. I don’t have any problems until I warm up.  It starts with a little itch on my right hip. I don’t think anything of it. But I scratch it and it immediately itches again. Then, my thighs itch. The itch moves down as my lower extremities warm up. I itch on my lower extremities mostly because that’s the part that got cold. And the hives are already forming. I’m sure it looks like I am bopping to a rap song, because I am jumping around in my seat while I’m driving in a futile effort to satisfy the itch without actually scratching. What I want to do is take off my pants and have a lower body scratch-down. It’s like a massage, but with scratching. By the time I drive the 30 minutes home, from my waist down is covered with red blotchy hives….and I ITCH. It’s like having poison ivy from the waist down. The hives are so thick on parts of me, it looks like I have hives on my hives.  I quickly take an Allegra and start soup for Travis, Tayden, and me. But when your body launches this type of reaction, you ache all over and feel quite sick, so it’s slow going.

I discovered this cold urticarial when I was in my 20s. If I swam in the lake at my dad’s cabin in the north woods for too long, I would break out in hives all over. Like all over. I had hives on my ears and between my toes. Water has a way of cooling the entire body. We thought I was allergic to something in the lake. But it didn’t always happen. I learned to swim in short bursts, because I could get away with it. But it couldn’t be the lake, because sometimes it happened to only my legs when downhill and cross country skiing. It was many years before I got a diagnosis. Then everything made sense.

So, yesterday I forgot. So last night I suffered. Thank goodness for Allegra. Today, all I have is achy joints (especially my hands), and residual hives on both sets of cheeks. Fortunately, make-up should help with one of those. Stay warm fellow northerners. And remember, it could be worse. You could actually be allergic to the cold.