Idk what’s wrong with me..
Female, 28 years old, 5’6”, about 220ish pounds, living in north Texas, USA.
I’m not sure if any of these things are related, but I’d like to give as much detail as possible just because.
At 2 months old, I was hospitalized for two weeks with kidney issues. This started a lifetime of chronic UTIs and kidney infections that were much worse as a child than they are now. I was catheterized 5 separate times before I was eight years old but no one ever really figured out why they happen. As an adult, I still have recurrent UTIs (about 1 a year). I also suffer from incontinence issues which a doctor told me was probably due to damage to my urethra from the catheterizations.
When I was 17 years old, I also had a massive hive flare up. I had never had hives in my life, but woke up one night with my lower stomach feeling like bubble wrap. They got worse and worse over the course of a couple of weeks, spreading up my stomach, to my chest, throat, face, and thighs. They weren’t bad during the day and got a lot worse during the night. We eventually figured out that it was due to a new laundry detergent that we had purchased (Purex).
Once we switched back to a different detergent, the night times hives stopped, but I developed dermatographia (photo included is about 10 minutes after I played with my puppy). Anytime I was scratched, pinched, or my skin was pushed I would develop an itchy hive that lasted about hour from onset to dissipation. I dealt with this from 2015ish until around 2022. It hasn’t been much of an issue since then.
I have been diagnosed with a few skeletal issues. Confirmed arthritis in my neck and spine (suspected elsewhere), degeneration of various disc spaces in the spine, mild scoliosis, and a slipped vertebrae in my lower back. I worked with a physical therapist for a few months after an injury and I was also diagnosed with “hyper mobile instability of the spine.” I very much suspect that I have hEDS but that is not confirmed.
Recently, I have been having an issue with large, puffy, red whelps that appear on my skin, particularly on my lower stomach, upper thigh area. They are extremely itchy, start out small, and get very puffy and dark red. They last for 3-5 days and then fade into dark red/purpleish bruise looking things. I feel like the pop up over night, just like my hives did back in high school. However, these behave very differently and are wildly uncomfortable. I went to a dermatologist who basically said “yeah they’re hives, take an antihistamine.” I’m taking Allegra every day and she also gave me 0.05% betamethasone cream that I feel like does very little.
I’m using Tide free and clear detergent, do not have bed bugs or fleas, and they are not mosquito bites.
In addition to everything else on the planet, I also have a problem with lots of cavities in my teeth (25 in my life), reactive hypoglycemia, and cluster headaches.
My skin is literally always itchy and I just want to know what I can do to deal with it. Is there something that anyone can tell me to try? I have a doctor’s appointment in a week, so if there is anything else I can suggest to them or bring up, please tell me. I’m down for whatever kind of testing, I just want to not be uncomfortable anymore.