The other day I posted about how I woke up with my eyelids all swollen and had a case of the hives again. This has happened to me about 6 or 7 times in my life before and I've never know what it was from. I even went to an allergist a few years ago and that was no help.
It's frustrating as all heck. My eyes get really puffy and itchy. It's not a pretty site folks. Thankfully I wear sunglasses pretty much 100% of the time I'm outside so I could hide it pretty easily from people. Then it starts to migrate down the left side of my face and into my left ear. Then the left side of my neck. It usually stops there but there have been times my stomach was covered in it too. Just random hives...no rhyme or reason.
I normally just deal with it for about the week it takes to go away. I try not to itch as much as I can and I usually put a steroid creme on my face. But, I'm being a lot more aware of medications and I didn't want to use anything that could potentially do more damage then good. I called the new doctor that I am going to start treating with. I always hesitate to call doctor's. I always feel like I'm being a pest. I figured he wouldn't be able to give me any answers since we don't have the test results for my autoimmune test back. Somehow I guess I think I know what their answer will be so I just don't even bother asking. Glad I got over that. We talked through some possibilities of what the reaction could be from.
Long story short. I'm thinking it's from a new lotion I picked up from the store last week. I am a sucker for coupons and I had a coupon for Jergens lotion so I picked up some. I put it on Darren's side of the bathroom and he used it once and told me he didn't like it. Said it had too many perfumes in it. So we switched. It's part of my morning beauty routine to dip a Qtip in some lotion and wipe off any leftover mascara that might be around my eyes. Low and behold...the next day...hives.
I looked at the ingredients and compared it to the normal lotion that I usually use and there was a list of about 17 things that were in the Jergen's that weren't in the Vaseline brand (not saying that brand is any better, it just doesn't make me break out). I started doing research about what goes into lotions etc.... I found out that some brands use Formaldehyde. Yup that's right. The National Cancer Institute had this to say "Formaldehyde has been classified as a known human carcinogen (cancer-causing substance) by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and as a probable human carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."
It's a KNOWN cancer causing substance and it's in a ton of household products. It's that crazy? So because it smells so bad they cover that smell up with "fragrance". The "fragrance" is more than likely what my allergic reaction is to. The times in the past I have gotten hives it was usually around the time of switching detergents to brands like Gain or All which both use heavy fragrance.
Back to the Formaldehyde...they don't list it as that on the bottles. They have code names of them. One of them is DMDM Hydantoin. I looked at the bottle of Jergen's, sure enough, there is was. I was lathering my body in a Known Cancer causing agent. Lovely! And we wonder why cancer runs rampant.
I was able to get a powdered mix from my doctor (at a hefty price, def not worth the coupon savings I got from buying the Jergens) and I'm already noticing a difference in my hives from that. Healing the body from the inside out is the best way. This is what I'm taking right now in case anyone needs an idea on how to cut down on inflammation in the body (esp intestines). InflamX
Anyway, that's my rant for the day. Check your bottles people.
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