Once again here I am awake in the middle of the night itching to death waiting for the Benadryl to kick in. Seems like lately at least once a month I wake up in the middle of the night with hives. Big welts mostly on my thighs and sometimes on my belly and arms as well. I have no idea what is causing it. I haven't changed nothing. Eat same stuff I've always eat. No new laundry detergent or nothing. I've noticed the more I scratch the more it spreads until the medicine kicks in. I know I shouldn't scratch but itching this bad can't help not to. There's been times before it was so bad and scratched so much that the next day even my legs was sore.
You can get "sensitised" to something that hasn't previously bothered you. So don't automatically rule out things like the laundry detergent or some food reaction. This can make it a real pain to track down.
First time was from lobster which I'd eatin many time before. Second time they told me it was from worrying over something. Last time was from morphine that was a real bad one. Now they put a red band on my wrist when I enter the hospital says ALLERGIC. Like Ianab says a real pain to track down.
Laundry detergent can change their formula too. My mother went through a couple unpleasant months till she figured that out.
Ed,
If lobster affects you how about other shellfish? If also bother you may be the iodine in the shellfish. My daughter was on vacation with friends when 16 and ate some lobster on a buffet at Myrtle Beach and went into anaphylactic shock and had to be rushed to ER and ventilated and got epinephrine injections. Turns out she had become sensitized to the iodine even though she had eaten such seafood before. They once wanted to check her kidneys using radiated iodine, she warned them, they did a test and same result as the lobster.
i never had hives in my life and one day bam got em got rid of them and keep getting them about every 2 week finely found out i had lyme they gave me doxy and never got them for about a year or so then started again got tested and had lyme again got more doxy and haven't had them yet they don't understand why i got hives and no bulls eye just something to think about
WV, I can eat shrimp no problem and I have had small amounts of lobster since with no reaction. Don't know if it's because the times I have had lobster I had cooked it myself. Hard to figure out.
If you are outdoors a lot and get ticks then read up on Alpha-Gal. It is a tick bite induced sensitization to various kinds of meat protein. Had a firefighter here get it and couldn't eat beef any more, which stank because he was a beef farmer... go figure. I'm not sure how many diff proteins it can make you allergic to but it will be a sudden change if you have it from no allergy to allergy.