Forms of Anaphylaxis

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Hi All,

This is a bit embarrassing because it turns out I didn't do 1/3 of what

you're supposed to do but I'm sharing this because I hope someone else might

benefit. On July 4th, we had a big family party outside and as per usual some of

my many food allergens were around (watermelon & shrimp) so I thought I'd be

fine just avoiding them as much as possible. Well, evidently not because despite

just having my Xolair 4 days prior, I broke out in horrific hives - it looked

like I was mutating or something. I took 1 25mg atarax(hydroxyzine)and thought

that was sufficient to stop the reaction without putting me to sleep (atarax is

a powerful sedative in addition to being one of the best antihistamines out

there), the hives grew, so 2 hours later I took another 25mg of atarax. The

hives continued to grow, up to my chest/neck, so I took another 25mg of atarax 2

hours after that. Then I slept for 9 hours, woke up the next morning with the

hives exactly the same size and the same locations as they were the previous

day. At that point I remembered that one of the pills (compazine) that I had

been prescribed during my pancreatitis bit last fall was also an antihistamine,

so I took 10mg of that and the hives seemingly magically disappeared.

I brought this 'event' up with my doctor when I saw him (for the first

time since this happened) this week. I brought it up kinda casually and

confident in that I treated it correctly and my pulmo/allergist was like " Meagan

you had a mild form of anaphylaxis, you could've gone to the ER. " But he said in

the future if that happens again, and I don't go to the ER, not to treat it with

just atarax at first because that's an H1 blocker and hives can be caused by

H2's. He said that what I'm supposed to do is take 50mg of atarax every 4 hours,

150mg of Zantac (H2 blocker) every 12 hours while symptoms persist and 1

Singulair (which I take daily anyway). So I thought atarax covered hives, and it

turns out it doesn't completely. The compazine that I took the next day is an H2

blocker, and my hives were H2 mediated apparently, so that's why the compazine

worked so well.

Anyway, I just wanted to let people know, so that you don't make the same

mistake I did.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend,

Meagan