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(Medical-NewsWire.com, December 04, 2015 ) Kerala, India -- The tingling sensation in the skin awakens the spirit that it's coming. First the mild itchy feeling and then the hives that erupt in the skin with intense severity that no matter what you do to control it, you feel the desperate need to scratch the heck out of it.
No, its not an allergy caused by pets or grass. As the cold dry season arrives, its time to make yourself ready as health risks are at a peak during this time. It is the cold climate that has triggered this behavior in skin.
As per a recent news at dispatch.com, in 2014 doctors had diagnosed cold hives in a 31 year old Columbus woman. It is called cold urticaria which is a rare skin reaction that occurs when your skin is exposed to weather. Heather Summers, the patient who was diagnosed claims that the itching was so uncomfy that she had to quit exercising in cold weather, had to take antihistamine before hitting an air conditioned flight or a winter workout.
This cold induced hives is a part of the family of chronic urticaria also called as nettle rash. A complete nuisance, cold urticaria can not only become severe but even become fatal. In fact, people who soak themselves in cold water have succumbed to death due to anaphylactic shock, which is a reaction to absolute drop in the blood pressure level that hinders proper breathing ritual as well thereby triggering the attack.
Hence doctors advise the patients to enter the cool water slowly rather than pouncing on them. Even cold drinks or exposure to cold fluids during surgery can trigger detrimental consequences. There are many reports of people fainting due to cold urticaria.
Study reported that an estimated 4-6% of people face some kind of physical urticaria at some point of their lives and cold urticaria upto 10 percent of those cases. This means that cold urticaria is only a fraction of one percent population and sadly often goes unnoticed.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases only have a handful of data which really doesn't say enough.
Usually, histamine does not circulate till the skin warms up but people who have been out in the cold weather for prolonged period can being showing symptoms before they go inside. Symptoms are tested by placing ice on the skin around 5 minutes. 75% of the people who have cold urticaria will develop hives.
Though the condition can pop at any age, the obvious age is in 20s and worst part is women are most likely to have this condition.
Cold urticaria is not a hereditary disease however there are few indications that say that rare immune disorders can trigger cold hives with origins of genetic mutation. For stating an example, urticaria results from evaporative cooling so a hive start to develop on the face just after a teardrop dries away.
There are many misconceptions about cold urticaria. Dr. Hirsh Komarow, staff clinican at the Laboratory of Allergic Disease at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases says that people go out for jogging and get hives. They think its because of the cold, but its mainly because of the jogging.
Though the conditions clears up on its own, half people do not suffer from cold urticaria five-six years later.
Tragic it is, that these cold air allergies are not well treated and though antihistamines are effective for while there is medication called omalizumab that comes under the brand name Xolair that is very much efficient in treating the condition. However, it is quite expensive and is not readily available with the public. There are however natural remedies that work as antihistamines to alleviate with allergy symptoms.
Just like with any other rare health conditions, scientists have little interest in digging up medications for cold-urticaria patients who sees only couple of cases a year.
However, Summers relies on certain tricks to get rid of hives. For instance, she waits for a while before shaving her legs to get into AC flight, wears several layers of clothing while entering an air conditioned gym and removes extra layers to balance the body temperature while warming up for a workout etc. but she certainly doesn't shrug away from her daily activities.
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