Eryn's dermographism

So Eryn has been having her hives for forever and we have been at a loss as to what to do. We has her tested for food and pet allergies and she came up negative, so the next step was to do the "skin prick" tests. It was a little expensive and the hives seemed to lessen for awhile, so we thought we would wait and save up money to do the test.

Well, our pediatrician retired suddenly and so we had to go to a new one. Through a sister-in-law (thank you Roxann!) we found one that specializes in asthma and allergies. So we went to an appointment and what a blessing! He did a simple test by "scratching" her back with a semi-sharp point to see if her back would form into welts where he scratched. I said nothing, but thought "Yep! We will see those welts, no doubt". Sure enough, as we have seen so many times on Eryn, she had the welts (he did it in the shape of tic-tac-toe). She also had been scratching close to where he scratched so she had even more welts on her back. Even the doctor was surprised to see such a severe reaction. So much so, that he took pictures of her back to show to others. He told us that her condition was called dermographism.

Most people with dermographism have a reaction to their skin being rubbed, often resulting in their skin will turning red. Dermographism is when that red marking also results in a hives type of reaction. The red in combination with the raised hives, make it look like you have been writing on your skin (this was taken from dermographism.com).

Now, it seems as if this is not a serious condition and our doctor told us there may be no "cure", but we can try to see if we can diminish its severity.

It sounds weird, but I was so relieved to just find out what she has. I was sick of people who don't know us giving us looks like we aren't doing enough for our daughter. The school nurse seemed to be frustrated that Eryn was coming in all the time with hives and would seem to look at me as if I was a bad mother for not figuring things out yet. I am not excited she has this, but it is not something serious and we will learn how she can deal with it.

I am also so grateful for those who helped me in finding this doctor and for the doctor himself. I have read where others have gone to many doctors not being able to be told any answers for years, and we only had to go to two! Thank goodness.