DS1 has never had a problem with specific allergies. He was diagnosed with NON-allergic rhinitis but we have the symptoms managed with twice daily saline nose spray, pseudoephedrine in the morning and benadryl at night. He has has spt's done twice and shown positive to nothing.
Starting Saturday morning he has started waking up with hives. Mostly over his arms, his legs, his lower trunk area. They hurt him, they say it feels like metal stabbing him and itches really bad. I put cortisone on them and they go away within 30 minutes or so. But he also got them really bad Saturday evening around 4pm after having gone to the mall and library.
I'm rewashing his bedding this morning, we always use a free and clear detergent and haven't made any changes. I put all his stuffed animals and whatever couldn't be washed in the dryer on high for 2 hours.
I checked his bed to make sure there were no buggy critters there and the pest control is coming over today as well.
I would think it was something in his bed or something but then he had them really bad Saturday early evening....I should have taken a photo this morning but I will tomorrow for sure if it happens again.
The only commonality I can think of is chocolate maybe? He has been eating chocolate for dessert at night and when at the mall I let him share my decaf iced mocha. But even then would chocolate for dessert give hives in the morning? I'm baffled! Anyone have any other ideas?
Any chance the pollen count is up - not in general necessarily, but to something specific?
I have been dealing with hives off and on for the last few weeks. My allergy cup is just full. Grass is rising and while I have never tested for it, I suspect it's an issue for me especially since much happened after DH cut the lawn and I bathed the kids who had been out "helping". I made the cardinal mistake of switching shampoos to one that never bothered me before - had even used the same container of it. Add in cutting a banana for my daughter without precautions (usually I glove up or let DS1 do it). And the result was hives all over my hands but the worst were those on my face and down the back of my neck.
Has he been getting over heated at night, waking up sweaty? Does he take a bath or shower before bed? Have his bedroom windows been open at all?
I know the pollen count around here is high because I can see it all over my car! lol
I was thinking heat too and I asked if he has been getting hot at night but he says no. He just has one blanket on his bed. I've been dressing him a little lighter in just light pants and t-shirt even though the lows around here are in the low 40's and I keep the heat down. He does take showers at night but doesn't have his windows open.
He just got home from school and said he had more before lunch and after lunch...sigh...I will be calling the dr!
Could they be caused by a virus by any chance. Has be been sick or seems to be getting sick
Not sick at all or the beginnings of and I say unfortunately just because at least that would be a reason to explain the hives :-/
When I had my viral hives, I had no other symptoms of illness for several days. Five days into it, I got a sore throat, swollen glands, and fever. A friend told me that her son had viral hives years ago and never had any symptoms besides the hives. Did you see my thread with the photo of my hives? My friend said her son's viral hives looked identical, so it would be telling if your son's hives look the same.
I don't recall seeing those photos, are they here in Main or in Off Topic? I'm totally kicking myself for not taking pics this morning. I'm going to have my camera next to my bed in the morning so I can take one first thing. He has some that are giant with just the red rings and others that are smaller that are completely filled in with red.
Did your hives itch? He said his feel like metal stabbing into him and some itch really bad and others don't.
I made him an appt for tomorrow afternoon.
I found your post Mookie. DS1's hives are actually much bigger and more spacing in between. But I did start reading up more on viral hives and I'm thinking that could very well be what it is. Though most of what I'm reading from Dr. Google says is best to get control of the hives or they can just become worse and worse. Which might also be why his hives were so bad this morning and he is now getting them more and more frequently. His back had some pretty big welts on it tonight. I'll try to get pics uploaded tomorrow. Hopefully the dr will be able to get us going in a good direction to get them under control.
I was about to find the thread and post a link to it, so I'm glad you posted that you already found it.
When does he go to the doctor? I hope you get it under control soon and that he's comfortable.
My niece and my elder DS used to get viral hives. Hers were textbook - they lasted about 10 days - 2 weeks and were gone. I'll spare you the details of DS's. Suffice it to say his we're a little unusual. ~)
Sorry to hear about the hives! I wonder - if not viral, maybe something he is allergic to environmentally that just wasn't prevalent where you used to live, but is in your new locale? They say it usually takes a couple of seasons of exposure to develop local allergies, that's why I thought it could be something there's just a lot more of than before.
Yeah it is just so hard to say! I want to say viral and I asked him again this morning if ANYTHING was hurting or feeling funny or if he felt sick at all (does it hurt when he pees, is his throat scratchy, does his face hurt...) and he said no to all. I guess we will go over options today at the appt.
Here are his hives on his arm and on his back.
(http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/3820/hives.jpg)
Make sure to check if it's erythma multiforme a virus that causes a type of hive dissimilar to allergic hives. Those discolored outer rings initially make me think viral. DS1 has had EM before and it took 3 doctors to figure out it wasn't caused by allergic reaction. The treatment was Benadryl around the clock for a few days. But... the raises flat areas (if that's what I'm seeing on my tiny phone screen) make me think not EM.
Yeah he has areas where they are totally flat and the irregular rings then he has tiny mosquito bite looking ones, then he has ones that are totally filled in with red that are raised and bumpy that are anywhere from the size of a dime to the size of a softball. His arms actually weren't as bad as they were yesterday. His legs were worse this morning but to take a photo that would have required him to drop his pants and he didn't want me taking of photo! I understood ;)
That looks awful. Poor guy! :-[
Back from the dr. She didn't really say that she thinks its viral. She did seem to think it was more of a reaction to something. So for now we are going to do Benadryl and Zyrtec for the next week or so, or until the hives are under control, then we have the referral to the allergist, so we will stop the meds the usual 5-7 before the allergy appt where I'm sure they will be doing a spt.
So hopefully the meds will help keep things under control at least and if it is viral then I'm guessing when we stop the meds they won't come back and when we do stop the meds if the hives come back it is more likely its an allergic response. We shall see!
freeze soft toys overnight, then wash and tumble dry.
bedding HAS to be washed at very high heat or the freeze stuff.
my son has had this sort of thing recently , its sort of overload, a mix of pollen, and dustmite at the moment. bad in uk at the moment .
( hubbys asthma is dreadfully annoying at the moment, i am waking him to take his ventolin, and he has upped the preventors. so am asking him to go to docs, its bad enough i have to sort out the kids health, let alone his!)
son has that dermagraphism as well, which means in normal people speak,....that you can run a finger over his skin and he gets a red mark or wheal. he gets marks from chairs or belts and seats. and apparently this is normal. for him anyway.
son has doubled antihistamine intake, turned his pollen filter up high, damp dusted his room, and got new allergy bedding, boil washed his covers etc. and finally nagged to high heaven on the benifts of applying his eczema lotions and potions in order to cut back on the feeding and so breeding of dustmites. think i have wasted my breathe here though....
When I had viral hives, at first they came back whenever the Benadryl wore off. Further into the course of the illness, I could go about 12 hours without Benadryl and then they'd come back. After about two weeks, they discontinued entirely.
I did wash all his bedding the other day in hot water, which here at our house is HOT! I didn't freeze his animals but I did put them and his pillows in the dryer on high for a few hours so hopefully that did some good. I know that new allergies can come on suddenly but if it is allergies GEESH!
Mookie - I was thinking maybe 2 weeks then on the Benadryl/Zyrtec then the 3rd week no meds and spt testing during the 4th week? If they are viral that should be plenty long seems how it has already been 4 days.
I had an issue today with DS2 after his nature walk. He sat down to eat lunch and boom, face full of hives. But it's pollen season, windy and he is the king of mystery hives. I don't think food because most of the kids hadn't unwrapped lunches even yet. Felt horrible for the PA allergic dad when I came back because he said he felt PTSD from their daughter's recent reaction. I saw the hives, told the teacher and whisked him to the bathroom to wash his face down all in about 10 seconds LOL
But this is my child who on top of having food allergies is prone to weeks on end of hives with no known cause just for fun :insane:
Wow, that looks miserable! Poor kid!
In either case antihistamines are the go to treatment but I'd keep viral as still
a possibility in the back of your mind. We saw two ER docs plus allergist before his ped and 2nd ER doc dx'd properly as viral. Viral, unfortunately, can get worse but (fortunately) it is rare. Like anything, watch it. It ain't fun.
So far so good this morning!
We had an interesting night last night with the on-call pedi calling to tell me to get my baby to an ER ASAP because a blood draw from earlier yesterday showed his potassium at being way too high of 6.6. So at midnight I had to get the boys out of bed and take everyone to the ER (because it figures DH is out of town!). When I got DS1 up he said he just had one or two hives on his arms. He didn't complain of being itchy at all at the hospital. And 2 hours later the little guys potassium levels showed as being normal at 4.2 and we were sent home. Gave DS1 another dose of benadryl. When he woke up again, some but not many hives. Gave more benadryl and then a bit later Zyrtec with breakfast. So far so good! Aside from him being super tired! Not sure how much of the tired to blame on the meds or because of all the "fun" last night!
I'm also still keeping an eye out for any sickness from a virus that has perhaps just not totally manifested just yet...
Ugh... my heart goes out to all of you. :grouphug:
Thanks twinturbo. He actually is finally doing much better. The Zyrtec seems to actually be doing the trick. After taking that aside from just a little one here or there, nothing! Do you think that because the Zyrtec itself basically took care of the whole issue it would be more allergy related? We haven't even had to double it up with benadryl!
Good to hear. Tried to reply yesterday but got jumped by children. Short answer is allergist & ped were mostly indifferent to which antihistamine to use but agreed that the bummer for viral is that we'll never really know the cause of reaction and in allergic kids there's more vectors to consider. In hindsight I would have preferred Zyrtec.