What Caused My Hives?
What caused my hives? This is a question that you have probably thought to yourself many times. I have been dealing with inducible urticaria since childhood, but I developed daily spontaneous hives in my mid-twenties.
It took me years to find what caused my hives. My physician was dismissive and cold, and that led me on a path of self discovery, and ultimately, functional medicine.
I talk about my story in this video if you are interested. I do need to do an update video because I am now in remission!
I want to share with you some of what my functional medicine testing revealed.
Here are some of the contributing factors that caused my hives:
Hormonal Imbalances:
- High Estrogen (Estrogen Dominance)
- Low Testosterone
- Low Cortisol
There are a lot of things that contribute to these, stress being one of them and I had a lot of trauma early in life. I was also guilty of using a lot of endocrine disrupting personal care products and microwaving food in plastic. Estrogen and histamine feed each other, so this can become a cycle that’s hard to break. You can learn more about estrogen dominance and hives HERE.
Poor Gut Health
- Imbalances in good/bad bacteria
- Leaky gut (enhanced gut permeability)
This one is the most common finding. Poor gut health and autoimmunity go hand in hand.
I took a ton of antibiotics as a kid due to chronic strep. Antibiotics can wipe out good bacteria and “opportunistic” bacteria can increase to unhealthy levels.
Poor gut health can impact our DAO levels and contribute to excess histamines as well.
I also took a lot of NSAIDs for chronic joint pain and menstrual cramps. NSAIDs are really hard on our gut! Leaky gut can cause food sensitivities and result in overactive immune response.
Diet can also play a role in our gut health, and today’s most common foods are full of additives, dyes, and other substances that our bodies don’t recognize as foods. This can be detrimental for our gut health and immune response.
Nutritional Deficiencies
- Low ferritin
- Low Vitamin D
- Low B vitamins
- Low Magnesium
Our diets these days tend to be less nutrient dense, and with poor gut health, we absorb less of the nutrition in our food. Nutrition plays an important role in our immune health. All of these nutrients are essential for our bodies to work efficiently and are commonly deficient.
Mold Toxicity
I have high levels of various types of mycotoxins.
Unfortunately, I did not find out about this until after the purchase of my home, which is wood, and has mold. So, this is something that I am still working on.
Mold mycotoxins can cause a lot of inflammation and an overactive immune response.
I had a lot of mold exposure as a child. I grew up in poverty and my parents couldn’t afford to repair the leaky pipe in the bathtub that leaked into my room.
Exposure like this has long-lasting ramifications.
A lot of people don’t have this level of exposure, but it doesn’t take that much to overwhelm your body.
Maybe your place of employment smells musty? You had a leak in a faucet or the roof at some point? You might have mold hidden where you can’t see it.
If you suspect mold exposure, it’s definitely worth investigating.
I interviewed Beth O’Hara from Mast Cell 360 about mold and hives. You can read or watch it HERE.
Genetics
I also have genetic SNPs that predispose me to “histamine intolerance.”
We can have genetic predisposition to lower amounts of the enzymes that degrade histamines. You are not doomed by your genetics though! There are things that we can do to mitigate these factors.
What caused my hives? Get to the root causes of your urticaria.
That was just a few of the contributing factors to what caused my hives.
There are many things that can contribute to hives and an overactive immune response.
I was able to get my spontaneous hives into remission, but it took me over ten years of trying. I am also currently living in a moldy home, so I constantly exposed to a trigger. This means that I am still at risk for relapse in my symptoms if I am not careful.
It’s no secret that I am a huge fan of functional medicine. I worked as a nurse for 15 years, but when I turned to traditional medicine, I was met with skepticism and gaslighting. Although this was a painful and difficult experience for me, I am now grateful. I was left to discover my own path to recovery and it ultimately led me to finding functional medicine, and getting to the root causes of my physical ailments, including what caused my hives.
I now support others with chronic hives, through this website, Facebook support groups, my YouTube channel, and mentoring/educating about functional medicine, and how to put chronic urticaria into remission.
What caused my hives?
For me it was a constellation of predisposing factors and exposure to triggers. Your situation might be different from mine, but I am willing to bet that you can relate to at least one of these. These are the things in my life that set me up for developing chronic urticaria.
- Chronic mold exposure
- Frequent use of antibiotics in my youth
- Trauma
- High stress, not managing my stress well
- Poor diet
- Frequent use of NSAID medications and H2 blockers
- Exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals in personal care products and plastics.
- Genetic predisposition for poor histamine degradation
What do you suspect caused your hives? Can you relate to any of the information I shared about my experiences?
Let us know in the comments.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7767453/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9271567/