Hives - Day 2 Part 1

This is my second day with hives and they're miserable! I've been able to reduce the outbreaks with two Benedryl every four hours. I had an apple for breakfast again and skipped lunch. I wasn't hungry at all. My stomach wasn't even growling. I'm thinking that it has something to do with the Zantac I took the day before but I'm not sure.

I had an offsite meeting that wrapped up at about 6:30 p.m. I got in my car and it was dead so I had someone from the firm drive me to a coffee shop up the street and called my wife to come and pick me up.

I felt obligated to purchase something from the coffee shop so I picked up a slice of banana bread with chocolate chips. I finished the slice just as my wife pulled into the parking lot. As we neared home, I had a warm, flush feeling come over my face and my arms. When I got home--which was about 20 minutes after I ate the banana break--my face was covered in hives. I'm convinced now more than ever that food is my trigger. The rest of my body followed. I developed 7-8 inch wheals over my stomach and splotches everywhere else. My thighs were almost completed covered. Ten minutes later, I started to feel wheezy and I felt that my airway was becoming restricted. I hopped in the car and jetted up to the hospital again. The wife stayed home to take care of the kids.

Hives - Day 1

I woke up Tuesday morning feeling quite normal. I went through the motions of my getting-ready-for-work ritual and drove to work with my breakfast in hand—a nice, delicious apple. I got to work, spoke with the team, devoured my apple, did the e-mail thing and co-hosted our radio show. The show wrapped up at noon and I headed to Sicilian Pizza with a friend. While I was there, I had a couple of tall glasses of Diet Coke and two slices of pizza—one slice was a spinach tomato and the other slice had almost everything on it except for black olives and mushrooms which I don’t care for any way.

We finished our meal and were talking shop. About 20 minutes after, I developed a sudden cough onset that wouldn’t stop. And this wasn’t a typical cough. Every time I barked, I would get a strong metallic taste in my mouth. I asked my colleague if it seemed like there was something in the air and he said no. We decided to head back to the office. During our walk back, I continued to have a strong urge to clear my lungs and the metallic taste continued. When we got back to the office, I headed to the bathroom to see if the metallic taste was blood. My spit test resulted in no blood. At this point, I was starting to feel wheezy, as if I were having a small asthma attack. I considered going to the hospital and asked a colleague for his opinion. He agreed and we bolted up the U of U hospital.

As we approached the ER, my cough subsided but I developed an excruciating pain right below my sternum. The pain radiated from the front to the back of my spin and made me feel like I had to pop my back. This isn’t the first time that I had experienced this but it had never been a pain level of seven out of ten. It was typically a two out of ten. I got checked in at the hospital, they took my vitals and I met with the doctor. I explained my case and he immediately ordered an EKG. I thought this was a little silly because the pain I was experiencing was too low to be heart related. Plus, I know what heart-related pain is like as I have had the pleasure of experiencing pericarditis twice in the last ten years. Just to be safe, they did the EKG and, as I suspected, everything looked great. The doctor was now convinced that I was experiencing acid reflux and he was convinced that aspirated stomach acid was the reason for the cough I developed at the pizza place. My chest pain was still strong so he ordered a numbing, GI cocktail and a Zantac. At this time, it was about 2:30 p.m. I took the Zantac first and followed it down with the cocktail. The numbing agent kicked in quickly and the back part of my tongue, my throat and esophagus and stomach were numb. Unfortunately, the chest pain persisted. I clearly articulated to the doctor that something else was going on but he discharged me with a prescription for Zantac. I left the ER at around 4:30 p.m.

I came back to the office, finished up a couple of things and headed home. Dinner time came and went but I wasn’t hungry and only had a large glass of water. At about 9:00 p.m. I noticed three small hive wheals on the crease of my left arm. They itched like crazy. Moments later, my bottom lip swelled significantly. I showed my wife and she thought it was just a canker sore. I wasn’t convinced as cankers don’t come on that quickly and cankers don’t look like what this looked like. This large bump had a smooth, clear surface. Within 15 minutes, the back of my neck, my scalp and my waist began breaking out with hives. Convinced that this was related to the Zantac I took six hours prior, I called the hospital and asked what I should do. They suggested that I take Benadryl. I popped two, was feeling drowsy and headed to bed.