After dealing with Megan's hives and eczema for over a year now, we are going to try a new theory.
1. Our first theory was that it was food related, so we had her tested for food intolerances. Quite a few things came up, and we have been pretty strict with her diet for the last six months, but her eczema is still there and she is still breaking out with hives.
2. Once we knew she was breaking out in hives whenever she took a shower, we tried different soap and shampoo. Again, nothing changed.
3. Now that we know she breaks out in hives when she takes a shower AND when she goes swimming, my new theory is that she has developed a sensitivity to chlorine. After talking to a few people and looking online, she exhibits the patterns of a chlorine sensitivity.
The way I understand it is that the hives are the immediate reaction to the irritant and the eczema is the long-term reaction. Today when she was done swimming, you could tell the chlorine really dried out her eczema. You could see her scratch marks on her spots and some were close to bleeding.
I would love to test this theory somehow, but I don't know where she could take a shower or swim in non-chlorinated water (besides the yucky lake). Somebody did mention getting a filter on our shower, which might help. My husband mentioned getting a dechlorinating system for the entire house. This doesn't help though when she goes swimming, but it may calm her system down and maybe she won't break out so bad.
I found these articles really interesting.
http://acaai.org/allergies/types/allergy-myths/chlorine-allergy
http://www.chlorineallergy.net/
Again, this may not be Megan's issue, but I have to keep trying!!
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