btw, much worse on my right arm than my left, and I'm right handed. I did use some new moisturizer yesterday, I remember, now - but only on my legs... so, in terms of direct contact, that was palms and legs, and they are fine. I've never had any kind of allergic reaction, except to cats.

All I know is I take benadryl and they go away.

Speaking as a licensed medical doctor using strictest medical terminology it might just be a stress goober from the mental bummitude combined with the "man, could I just forget about wearing clothes altogether?" heat. I prescribe a back scratch from the husband and some green tea ice cream.

mrs chewie gets 'em from sulfa drugs. That's all I know. May they retreat soon. Along with the heat.

Mullacc - Do you get them often? But you don't know why?

re: Benadryl, I won't be able to go to a pharmacy until Monday (I hope I won't need to by then!).

I like the way you think, sci. But the husband-type person is away. He was just here for a couple of days while on a break from his away-work, but went back Thursday night. This is part of that depression thingy, no doubt. Also, the little grocery near my house that sells the green-tea ice cream is closed for summer holidays. Everything's closed. Everybody is gone. I'm the last person left in Athens. If it weren't so hot, I could just walk around town and go into people's houses and raid their fridges and spy in their closets. But... too hot.

and sadly, chewie, the 7-day forecast SUCKS. The forecast is, it's going to get even hotter. *cries*

I get them from certain detergents or contact with wool. They usually go away aftey a day or two. Benadryl is a good thing to keep around as a "just in case" kind of thing, particullarly if you don't have easy access to drug stores. Sorry Taz :(

I get them when I am under a lot of stress - only on my arms and hands (palms and backs). Benadryl doesn't help me, but figuring out the cause of stress will relieve them quickly. My grandmother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, I was trying to finish my MBA, and buy a house all at the same time - any other stress would just put me over the edge.

My allergist recommended that I stay away from ibuprofen products, as they can make it easier to get hives in the future (I still don't really understand the logic on that one). I haven't gotten any in two years - but I was getting them almost daily for around two months. Good luck.

*squirrelhugs*

I get them from sweat and atmospheric dust. Benadryl takes them away fast.

Unless it's bubonic plague.

heh. Uhoh.

The only time I've broken out in hives was from stress. I was three-years-old. I was still attached to the baby bottle. My mother decided it was time to break the habit and held this little ceremony, other babies needed it, etc. I agreed and went on my merry way. Come bedtime I had a fit, broke out into hives on my entire body. My father had to go to the 24- hour drug store clear across town to buy a new bottle.

I held onto the bottle until I was four-years-old. I would even prepare my own bottle. Unscrew cap, open fridge, fill, screw on cap, drink.

Good luck taz, maybe you need a bottle of milk or Coca-Cola.

If it hasn't been from an allergy, i've gotten intense and overwhelming hives when being physically run down and being post crisis. Once some major disaster or crisis has been dealt with and things are finally safe enough to downgrade from full alert and crisis management, here come the hives, so severe the maximum doses of antihistamines barely make a difference. It's only happened a couple times from truly extreme circumstances, and the only way to deal in a crisis is to put away everything but that which needs to be until after the fact.

Relax and keep your immunity high. You need to be stroked lovingly and fed treats like a kitty.
Cooling baths, soothing scents, and a teeny tiny chill pill. Like something from the 'pam family.
The unending heat is weighing you down.
And check you ac or air filters.
Are you running a temperature or feeling achy or laconic? Getting enough sleep and vitamins? Maybe play it in the keys of A, B, and C today if you have any such vitarich foodstuffs available. Scent a handkerchief in lavender water like ladies in old English books.
You should be promptly fanned by your slaveboy and nap to the sound of your most pleasant music.

It's suppose to be in the seventies to day and that makes things seem instantly less disgustifying.

Aw, lori! Poor baby! I can just picture you. :)

Thanks, eth. I'm going to do as much of that as I can. I haven't been getting enough sleep, and I haven't been eating as well as usual because with everything being closed, it's been hard to get fresh vegetables for the last couple of weeks (unless I walk a mile in the sun to the supermarket to get their raggedy-ass, nasty vegetables) - and normally I eat good veggies every day.

I am getting some slight chills every once in a while. I think I have SSS (Sick-of-Summer Stress), a nonexistent diagnosis I claim for me and my heirs. I'm running the AC and damn the torpedoes (and the environment. and the electric bills.) I'm gonna hide inside and eat my frozen peas and sun dried tomatoes and play computer games, and read books. :)

Taz, not sure if the hives are still going on, but I have TONS of experience with hives. I have a lot of random allergies and apparently my sensitive skin is allergic to more than the rest of me is.

Benadryl works but there's also the grogginess factor. If you want to avoid that, then just apply some over the counter hydrocortisone cream (there's actually a benadryl brand cream for hives, but I don't find it works any better.

You say "undersides" of your arms, but do you mean the elbow side, or the soft, fleshy side? The soft (palms up) sides of your arms could just have contact dermatitis from sweat or some sort of heat rash combo.

If it's the elbow sides of your arms, you probably rested on your arms at some point and touched something that makes you react. This happened to me once when I leaned on a railing at a petting zoo that had wild rabbits running all over the place. I leaned on it for about ten seconds and when I walked away I noticed the elbow sides of both arms had HUGE welts on them. It took the rest of the car ride back to figure out that it was likely bunny-related.

Also - I'd avoid putting any more lotion or anything scented on the area for a couple of days. Sometimes people have reactions to lotions, perfumes, body washes that they use all the time - your body just doesn't like it any more. Or, the stuff changes its composition over time and whatever happens to it now makes you itchy/rashy. If it's already irritated, rubbing lotion in could make it worse. And if you bathe, use lukewarm water because hot water can irritate it too.

I swear I'm not a doctor, I just have a lot of dermatological experience. FEEL BETTER!

I get a lot of heat rash-y type stuff. It sucks, but it does just go away eventually. I just try to minimise sweat and stay cool. That doesn't sound like it's going to work so well in Athens, though :(

I hope it clears up soon!

omg, bunny hives? Say it ain't so, Sass!

Yep, it's the palms-up "soft side" of my lower arms, from the elbow crease down.

I'm sure it's a combination of heat-related, and stress from putting up with the heat for so long, with no end in sight - and temperatures increasing (!). Again.

In northern Greece, usually, just at the point that you think you can't take it any more, the heat starts to recede. After the 15th of August, you can almost always begin to sense the weather changing. I don't know if that usually happens in Athens, but I just checked next week's forecast for Thessaloniki, too, and it's just as bad as it is for here... The whole country's just totally off the map this summer.

But my body is going, "I can haz sum Fall weathers now plz??????"

Bendadryl (which makes me drowsy) and Claritin (which doesn't) pills are my drugs of choice for allergic reactions. Benadryl cream (which is sometimes included in first aid kits if there is one around) applied to the hives should help relieve the symptoms until you can get some pills.

Sometimes I get hives, and then they just disappear as quickly as they arose. It's simply an allergic reaction to.... Lord knows what, sometimes made worse by stress. Before I realized stress was such a big component of mine, they used to freak me out which made them worse. Now that I know they are just my body's way of releasing stress, I just rub some Benadryl or pop a pill and try to ignore them as much as possible.

Like SassHat, I have far too much experience with hives. Things that have triggered my welts and hives include:

- extreme heat
- detergents, soaps, lotions (on me or one I've hugged)
- the finishing products on new clothes (I've learned always to wash clothes before wearing them)
- certain foods*
- mold, pollen, dust

Not surprisingly, all of these can have a psychological (psychosomatic?) component: stress or crisis make it easier for any of the irritants to trigger a reaction.

To calm them, I usually take a cool shower or tepid bath with no soap, or gentle cleanser if I suspect contact with an irritating substance, and sometimes I dust the affected area with baby powder, if it's likely to chafe. The powder's probably not a great idea for you, because A) your forearms won't benefit from it and B) if you're sensitive to it, it can possibly exacerbate the reaction.

Running the AC sounds like a great idea. Check the filter first. Is it dusty or moldy?

* After I ate fiddleheads for the first time, I looked like the victim of alien assault: I was covered --- covered --- in big ring-shaped red welts with ghastly pale centers, just exactly as if I'd been attacked by some handsy beast with suckers on its appendages.

Oh, and in the unlikely event that they start appearing in or around your mouth, get thee to a medical facility pronto, especially if you're alone in the house. Rarely, hives can swell up in your airway and obstruct breathing. Please don't worry about this; it's almost certainly not going to happen to you, ever.

If I have hives lasting more than a few days, I find that taking Benadryl only at night works moderately well for me. The side effects don't interefere with my sleep (understatement!), I'm alert during the day, and my daytime symptoms are sharply reduced, perhaps from a residue of antihistamines in my system (?).

Feel better! Keeping cool sounds like the best thing you can do. You can also use icepacks in addition to the AC.

Mullacc - Do you get them often? But you don't know why?

I used to get them during certain times of the year. I think my grass allergies were the culprit. I don't get them often now because I...uh...stay away from grass. Heh.

Run the back of your fingernail down the back of your other hand. When it forms a red line, that's the same response that manifests hives during an allergic reaction. Or so a doctor once told me. Different people have different levels of sensitivity to different things as well as overall levels of tendency to form hives. It may be worth talking to a doctor about it to see if perhaps there's anything else going on. It's possible several factors are heightening your sensitivity right now. Could be nothing... seasonal whatever... or it could be something more interesting... IANIKKUYU2...

Thanks, y'all. It was terribly comforting to have your input - even though this is something so silly, and apparently ordinary.

It's almost all gone now, and I'm crossing my fingers it won't become a regular feature of my summers. I feel (but don't know) that the ultimate cause was heat fatigue, and that it might have popped up right after I looked at next week's (awful) forecast. :|

Despite being thought of as a "hot" country, the historic temperatures here, for most of the country, are actually quite temperate, and my experience has been that it's really pretty manageable, even for someone like me, who hates high temperatures. This summer has been off the charts in every way, and I pray it hasn't suddenly become the norm. (Increasingly high temperatures though, have become the norm - just not this phenomenally high, usually.)

"... This summer has been off the charts in every way ..."

No kiddin'. In Alabama, the TVA has had to shut down a nuclear power reactor, because the Tennessee River is too warm to supply cooling water.