[Other words related to the same condition: Nesselsucht (in German), Hives, Angioedema, Wheals, …]
What is it?
Chronic Spontaneous Urticaria (CSU) is a long-lasting medical condition whose symptoms are – itchy spots (wheals) on the body and swelling (angioedema) of various body parts, especially face. It’s the “spontaneous” part of the disease that makes it one of the most feared, annoying and embarrassing of the diseases. Imagine living in the constant fear of developing a swollen and highly deformed face without any warning, say before a big presentation at the office or the wedding of a family member! That’s the fear I lived in for over a year.
One day I woke up with a horribly swollen face (so swollen were the lips that I couldn’t eat or drink anything properly) and the condition came every few days for over a year … until I found the root cause and got rid of it completely!
What are the Treatments?
There are medications that treat the symptoms, e.g. antihistamines or corticosteroids, but there is no treatment that rids CSU completely.
With some luck and a lot of my own scientific investigations, I found the root cause for my CSU and haven’t had a single episode for a year now. That’s when I decided to write this piece to help out others suffering from the same condition.
How did I investigate?
- Elimination diets: I was under the impression that my CSU episodes were being triggered by certain food items. So, I eliminated many food items (e.g. kiwis, peanuts, milk, …) from my diet one by one to check if there was any impact. There was barely any.
- Sports Elimination: My CSU was sometimes made worse on the days I exercised, I felt. So, I even tried not exercising or doing sports to see if it had any impact. Again, there was barely any.
- Food-diary: For 3 months, I noted down everything I consumed during the day, whether or not a CSU incident occurred, which medication I took, whether or not I exercised on the day, … The diary didn’t directly help because my CSU wasn’t due to a certain food item. But indirectly, it gave me the ultimate insight into the root cause of my condition –
What was the Root Cause of My CSU?
In my food-diary, I noticed a pattern that everytime I ate stale food, especially potatoes, I had a CSU episode. Bingo!
It turned out, consuming improperly refrigerated food for long periods of time was the culprit. In one winter, I had gotten into the habit of keeping freshly cooked food out of the fridge because “it was cold enough outside anyway” (I live in Germany where the night temperatures during winter can be around -10 deg C).
As soon as I started properly refrigerating the food I cooked and started eating more fresh food, my CSU just vanished … really VANISHED! It hasn’t occurred for a year now. Sure, I had mild “hints” of a probable CSU episode every time I mistakenly ate stale food but (a) it was mild, and (b) I proactively took an antihistamine to nip the episode in the bud.
Isn’t This Root Cause Known to Science?
After reading over 20 scientific papers on CSU and a whole book written by world’s leading experts of CSU, I thought that this stale food cause is unknown to the medical community. So, I contacted the book’s editor and one of the big CSU experts in the world. To his credit, he called me to discuss my case and congratulate me for recovering from it completely. To my dismay though, he said that this root cause is in fact known.
“Then why wasn’t it mentioned in your book? Or all the other papers?” I asked.
“Well, maybe I should include it in the next edition of the book!” he replied.
Whether or not he includes this information in the book in future, I decided to write about it here so that this information can help other people who are still living in the constant fear of their CSU!