i just wanted to share my urticaria story so that hopefully some of you might relate.
Hello hello happy sunday um i just wanted to kind of talk about something because it’s kind of on my mind at the moment and it’s kind of annoying me and it’s kind of affecting it’s not affecting my happiness it’s just affecting my mood which i guess you could say that’s your happiness also when i was younger when i was like in my late teens early 20s i had chronic
Urticaria and if you don’t know now you know chronic urticaria is when your body comes out in the hives uh sometimes they’re achieved sometimes they’re not and they’re just really uncomfortable and it’s kind of like an allergy but when i was younger i did blood tests i went to doctors skin specialists and basically the most commonly used phrase to me was needle
In a haystack so basically finding out what triggers your urge to carry out can be a needle in a haystack and i had it i think on and off for a few years i remember the first ever time i suffered with urticaria and chronic hives was after my confirmation so i was like 12 or 13 and my lips well really big i like hives all over my body they were so itchy and then
When i was 21 22 i went to toronto for new year’s and i flew back from toronto and ever since then i hadn’t got any more hives or urticaria um which was amazing and the urticaria that i had when i was younger was really awful in the way that it was like so many hives they were so raised they were so itchy sweating aggravates them hot showers aggravate them tight
Clothing aggravates them so and then i was taking a lot of antihistamine medication which essentially stops the hives but i’ve learned now that antihistamine medication has a lot of side effects like drowsiness and brain fog weight gain why i’m telling you this now is ever since i’ve came to brazil the urticaria has made a reappearance and it’s not itchy and
It’s not like it’s not like a big deal that i’m like incredibly sick or anything like that it’s just uncomfortable uh my lip is swept slightly swollen today i don’t know can you see this side of my lip is slightly swollen i have i’ll show you in the mirror in a minute but i’ve hives all across my hips all across my legs i have some of my arms here like that’s a
Really big hive there and they won’t go away i did guess medication uh vinnie’s sister is a nurse she brought me to the pharmacy and they gave me medication but i took the medication i literally slept for 24 hours like i was exhausted after taking it i’m at a completely different mindset now than when i was when i was younger in the fact that i really tried to
Stay away from medicines and if i can like panadol or anything like that i don’t like just taking medication to make the problem go away um especially because a lot of medications in my opinion i don’t really like them they have a lot of side effects i know obviously medicine is great and i’m not demonizing modern medicine or anything like that i’m just more of
I prefer trying to take a more natural approach the hives aren’t really bothering me like they’re not itchy so i don’t feel the need to go and get antihistamines and be taking them every day because it got to a point a few years ago when i took the antihistamines i was taking them every day you know you’re supposed to take one one a day one a day wasn’t enough
For me my body became immune to it so i had to take multiple and it just wasn’t good and obviously as well my work at the moment is very creative and i have to be very on the ball and you know alert so i don’t want to take a medication that might make me a bit foggy or less concentrated or sleepy or anything like that i don’t want to take that but i went on to
Youtube to you know try find similar stories or people trying different things or you know because youtube has everything and i couldn’t really find many people online sharing their journey with urticaria or anything that goes along with it uh apparently it’s common i was looking at statistics and how many people it can affect and it can come and go and you know
It’s an autoimmune disease that’s what it’s labeled as so you know i was looking up supplements i can take so i’m taking vitamin d vitamin c b12 at the moment because that helps your immune system and that can help the hives go away i don’t know where it came from i like it could have came from it could be the fact in brazil they use different like pesticides or
Like things to keep your food fresh on the food um it could be like a certain ingredient that’s commonly used here that wouldn’t be used in ireland i thought it was prawns when i first came i was eating loads of prawns so i stopped eating them then i thought it was acai because as you all know i was eating acai loads and i’ve cut both those things out and i’m a
Very picky eater so it’s not like for me that i would eat so many new foods every different day that i wouldn’t be able to like whittle it down but i don’t know where it’s coming from and it’s like i woke up this morning and before i even opened my eyes i like felt my hips to feel where their hives and there was nothing and like there was such a sigh of relief
Because obviously i’m in brazil as well like it’s warm you’d be in a bikini and stuff like that and i don’t really care how they look personally but obviously if people see them it’s different so people are curious so basically what i’m saying is my urticary is back and i’m gonna kind of share this all with you i mean would i even be a youtuber if i didn’t share
Something going on in my life but you know i feel like obviously everyone has their boundaries and some things i don’t like to share online because they’re too personal but i feel like with this if anyone else is suffering with urticaria or chronic hives and something i share helps them or makes it relatable or that someone doesn’t feel so alone then i guess i’m
Doing my job so i’m actually just going to post this as its own video like i was going to add this into a blog i think i’m just gonna post like a 10 minute video um kind of unedited so my bedroom’s a mess now so excuse me but i actually oh my god it’s so bad so that’s like all the hives there on my hip um i’m wearing loose fitting clothing at the moment obviously
You can see on my stomach area there’s loads there there’s loads kind of going up my arm thankfully there it doesn’t affect my face or like anything like that like the inside of my leg i have loads of hives there at the moment i’m kind of just wearing loose-fitting clothes you know when i go to the gym when i sweat it aggravates them when i um have a shower if
The hot really hot shower can aggravate us um i’m trying to like not eat foods that are new or any foods that are high in natural histamines and it’s just a mess because i’m like i’m in brazil it’s so stunning i haven’t had these hives in like four years five years and now i fly here and it happens so yeah it’s just it’s frustrating it’s annoying it’s like it
It’s not making me sick i’m not sick i’m not itchy i’m not like it’s but it’s just annoying to wake up every day and look and see the hives again and then it affects my mood because i’m just like oh but they just go away and then i’m like i know if i go to the pharmacy and get antihistamines it’ll make them go away for today but then they’ll be back tomorrow and
I’ll just have to take that again so that doesn’t really solve any problems so yeah i just said i would post this video and share this with you all because it’s very annoying and hopefully maybe some of you can relate to me or just share your stories or even if any of you have chronic urticaria or chronic hives or have had in the past if you have any tips or
Tricks i’ve been googling everything i really want to go down a holistic route i might get acupuncture um just because i don’t want to go down the route or like taking really high dosage antihistamines like that’s only going to mask the problem that’s not actually going to fix it i’d rather try and fix it so yeah thank you for listening to me rambo um if you
Can relate to this or if you’ve any sort of unknown like the problem with chronic urchin is it’s so unknown what causes it where it comes from how long it’ll last like i could wake up tomorrow could be gone and then it might disappear for three months and then come back you know that’s what it did for the last four five years and that’s what it did before and i
Had it you know i’d have it for weeks on end my eyes would swell my lips would swell really really big that hasn’t happened yet like my lip is a tiny bit swollen here but like it’s nothing major but yeah it’s just very annoying so i just thought i’d share this because i don’t know i want to provide help on the internet maybe try some things document this a bit
I don’t know thanks for listening i guess and um if you’ve any suggestions or tips or anything that i can do please comment it below and if you’re new subscribe and we can go on this weird urticaria journey together bye
Transcribed from video
i have chronic urticaria By Rebecca Shortt
