Last night I was sitting in my sun room on a lounge chair watching TV. It was around 8 p.m. and I was absentmindedly scratching myself. A lot. After 15 or 20 minutes of scratching, when I figured maybe there was an insect on the lounge chair that bit me in multiple places, I stood up and realized I had red welts all around my torso, lower back, butt, upper leg. HIVES!
How the heck did I get that? I ate nothing out of the ordinary.
I popped an antihistamine pill that expired in 2009 and I woke up at 8:45 a.m. this morning! Yikes. Work starts at 8:30 a.m., even when I work at home. I scrambled to get the laptop running.
The hives are nearly all gone, although I do seem some welts (not red) on my stomach. This is a 24-hour antihimstame and I'm wondering if they're gone for good or will they come back?
But the bigger mystery is what caused this to happen?
I assume the allergic reaction will occur a few hours after eating whatever you're allergic to.
Unless this is a brand new allergy with 1st time reaction, I ate NOTHING I haven't eaten a thousand times before.
Around 5 pm I made myself a smoothie with almond milk, kale, banana and frozen wild blueberries. All things I've eaten before, even regularly.
Sometime after that, maybe around 6 or 6:30 pm, I made myself a salad made up of green lettuce, homegrown tomatoes, cucumber, a handful of walnuts, croutons and Paul Newman's creamy caesar salad dressing.
I would think the reaction, which occurred around 8 p.m., was for the 2nd meal I had around 6 or 6:30 pm. These are ALL foods I eat often, even every day when it comes to the salads.
The only other thing I can think of, based on my online research, is that it was cat dander. I was lying on the lounge chair which is covered with a cotton throw, and the cats do frequently lay on it. I was wearing shorts and t-shirt that i think may have been riding up a little as i lay there in a recumbent position. So part of my back was directly exposed to the cotton throw. The worst hives on me were top of my butt and lower back.
What do you think? I'm totally thrown by this. The only other time in my life when i had hives was about 5 years ago when i was overdosing on Andrographis, an herb I was taking, along with others, when i had Lyme disease.
WHOA. How'd that happen?
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