Allergic to rain water?

[crackana]

Hi I'm wondering if anyone knows about my symptoms.

I recently went running-not a fast pace- for 30 mins in the rain.  When I got home my face was covered in large welts, I was itching all over, had trouble breathing and had intense stomach cramps.  It took 40 mins lying in a warm bath to get any relief.

This had occurred once before but the symptoms weren't so intense.  Also as a child my skin reacted to cold weather and rainwater.

Any ideas??

[MissJessica93]

Your comment makes alot of sense, my best friend is allergic to the rain, just today i became aware of it for the first time, it was pouring outside, and the rain was quite cold and the longer she was out, the redder her skin got and after a few more minutes she began to develop hives all over her body and it took about an hour and a half for it to subside; i was wondering if there is any possible medication that could be taken to help keep this at ease if it is urticaria. Her doctor has prescribed reactin to her, but it does not seem to have any reaction towards helping her allergy.

[pooja50]

i am badlly allergic from rain ,please tell what do I do?

[DrBigspoon]

iv also bein getting an allergic reaction rash from rain for the last couple of weeks only, i live in Ireland and we are prone to rain here and it was never a problem before now! i can't understand where this has developed from??

[Loubielou01]

I've had this happen to me too.  I think the rainwater just makes your skin feel colder than it would when dry, bringing on cold urticaria more.  

I cold urticaria about 7 or 8 years ago and it's never gone away.  I don't know why it started, but I was going out doing more practical conservation things back then and going running so I guess I was exposed to the wet and cold more than usual.

I've had hayfever since I was at primary school and am allergic to penicillin. In my mid teenage years I developed asthma and my late teens I became allergic to Zinc Oxide (so no calamine lotion, beauty products or suntan lotions with that in for me).  I'm going to be 40 this year and I have to take anti-histamines every day now or else within a day of stopping I start itching on my hands like mad, then my head and legs start itching and then I come out in hives, mainly on my legs and bum and especially if it's even slightly cool.  

As I live in the UK the weather is never hot enough for me to go without the tablets.  I'd love to see whether things were different in a hot country with less airbourne pollen in the air, but I suspect that I'll still need antihistamines somehow. Even with the tablets I can still be a bit itchy still if I get too cold, so I just have to make sure I wrap up well and wear a few layers on my legs.  I suppose the reason I got hives on my bottom half is because in winter that's the only area we don't tend to wear more layers on.  Since then, I've worn leggings under my trousers or jeans and as long as I take my tablets I seem to be ok now.

It is annoying as I'd like to gon without the medication, but I recently read that allergies may be the result of improved living conditions ironically enough.  In countries that have less sanitary conditions and gut parasites such a helminths (worms), people seem to have less allergies.  Research that has been undertaken has concluded that now our bodies do not have to defend against these invaiders, it seems kind of lost for what to defend against now.  Thus their attention has been drawn to other things that aren't really a threat, i.e. pollen, dust mites, mold spores, animal dander, air pollution, insect bites, foods and of course for us: temperature extremes.  So, unfortunately it looks like our stupid bodies can't evolutionarily keep up with modern lifestyle advances.  

See this: http://www.themedguru.com/20101114/newsfeature/maggots-leeches-and-worms-may-cure-severe-allergies-researchers-86141842.html

and: http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/25017/

Researchers are however looking at whether there is anything the worms excrete that we can safely take to keep our immune systems happily by tricking it into thinking it's doing a good job chasing worms away again.  Otherwise we need to go and eat some worms...eek!

Anyone know where I can get some worm eggs from? LOL.

[Dr. Kokil Mathur]

Hi
Thanks for writing to the forum!

If as a child your skin was allergic to cold weather and rain then chances are that you suffer from cold urticaria. Many a times an allergy starts in reaction to heat or cold. A chemical in our body called histamine starts a reaction in response to cold stimuli, including a drastic drop in temperature, cold air, and cold water. However, rain water has many chemicals too that you can be allergic too. Avoidance is the best treatment. Warming up your body too will help. Many underlying diseases or a history of any of these in the past like chickenpox (varicella), cryoglobulinemia, infectious mononucleosis (glandular fever), chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, lymphosarcoma, and hepatitis, can cause cold urticaria. Mostly cold urticaria is idiopathic, that is of unknown cause. Even swimming can start this.

Hope this helps. Please let me know if there is any thing else and do keep me posted. Take care!