Hives

I spent today home with Trinks. She's having belly issues and I have hives EVERYWHERE. The only painful ones are on my palms and the soles of my feet. It's hard to describe how hives feel. I think the best comparison I have is the memory of when I was around 9 and stepped on an underground bee hive. I was stung about 50 times. Bee stings are just a pinch, but the itching afterwards is horrific. Hives are like that, and NOTHING takes the itching away. It feels like bugs are crawling around, just under my skin and it spreads until there is no other place for the hives to go. The steroid cream really doesn't work, heat spreads the hives, and frozen veggies take the edge off. We're having frozen green beans tonight - they are already defrosted! I would have poison ivy any day rather than face hives for an hour.

I am no stranger to hives. I grew up getting hives after swimming in really cold water. I was a fish and nothing kept me out of the water, so I had hives a lot until I outgrew them. I'm not sure what brought this outbreak on - it could have been pressure urticaria, or any of the other miserable urticarias. No test will ever pinpoint the cause, and solutions are few and far between. People get hives from unknown origin all the time, and sometimes they last for years. Hopefully mine won't.

Tomorrow Trinks and I have appointments in the AM. Hubby will have to tag team Trinks' appointment so I can get to mine. I don't think I can go to work tomorrow - the hives will reach my face shortly and I don't want to have to explain what's going on to everyone I come in contact with.