Kiss My Knits!

Em developed a case of hives yesterday evening. There was no fever. She picked up splotches all over her trunk, then about 3am she woke us up by loudly saying “Excuse me!” from her bed, as if she were breaking into a conversation. She waited for some acknowledgment, then told me her legs itched. Sure enough, her torso was clear, but now there were hives all up and down her legs. I rubbed Benadryl on her legs and sent her back to bed.

At about 7:30am she said “my ear hurts” which of course immediately woke me up (I had a long night, I deserve to sleep until 7:30). “Mom radar” is very powerful. She said it didn’t itch, it hurt, so I called the doctor’s office, where the after hours service basically told me to call back at 8 since they couldn’t get the info to the nurses there any faster than that, and I might as well wait and talk to them directly when they opened. Em woke up, got dressed, and went back to her room to play again. She stopped complaining about her ear.

It’s 9:30, and her legs have mostly cleared up, but now there are faint hives under her chin on the side where she said her ear hurt. She’s running, like, a 0.2 degree fever, so now I’m doing that balancing act where you don’t want to take them to the doctor for every little thing, but neither do you want to not take them and then later find out that they had dermophonosloughia or something horrible that you could have prevented if you’d just been a little more proactive. I wish kids came with a user manual.

The most likely explanation for this mystery is that she was allergic to something she had yesterday. I was using a new soap on the laundry, but I’ve used it several times before with no ill effects. She could, of course, have built up a reaction to it, and this was our first guess since the rash first appeared on her trunk, but now I don’t think that’s the culprit. I have re-washed all her clothes in our usual detergent, just in case.

She’s very conservative in what she likes to eat, so she didn’t eat anything out of the ordinary yesterday. The thing that she ate that I consider to be most likely is Lindy’s chocolate gelato. Harris Teeter was having a two-for-one sale, so I had just gotten some that afternoon and she ate a cup. The reasons I consider this the most suspect are a) she sometimes has a little trouble digesting milk, b) it was a brand new package so I’m wondering if they changed their recipe, c) I used to have a chocolate allergy.

Yes, you heard me. I used to be allergic to chocolate. It seems impossible. Me without chocolate is like you without oxygen. But when I was a child, I used to get hives from eating chocolate or strawberries. Thankfully I grew out of it.

I really, really hope that Em hasn’t developed a chocolate allergy. Just to be safe, when I freaked out and went shopping early this morning for about 20 kinds of anti-itch remedy, I also picked up some Luigi’s Italian Ice so she could have a sweet treat that didn’t contain chocolate. The last thing she needs is to be itchy at school tomorrow.

ETA: I called the doctor’s office and spoke to a nurse who said that she calls her child “The Hive Queen.” The advice was to give her some Benadryl (happily, one of the products I picked up this morning) and watch her, and if the hives haven’t gone away in 24 hours, call them back. Can do!

Update 7pm: The Benadyl helped, but since it wore off they’re back, specifically in oblong raised blotches on her chin. She looks like a Skrull.

I predict that reference will be too nerdy for everyone except possibly .

ETA again: Hives were gone by the next morning. She had chocolate ice cream a couple of nights later with absolutely no ill effects, so it wasn’t the ice cream. Quite the mystery!