A Briton suffers from a severe allergy to the cold. Ice cream, cold drinks and winter walks are strictly prohibited.
- In 95% of cases, the causes of cold urticaria are unknown.
- The ice cube test is the only diagnostic tool.
- Treatments with antihistamines are sometimes effective.
As is often the case with uncommon illnesses, it took time for Zuzanna Dmitruk to realize the ailment she was suffering from. This 20-year-old British student suffers from an allergy to the cold and confides her experience to the Manchester Evening News. Her first symptoms appeared around the age of ten: during the winter, her fingers began to swell and itch.
A lengthy diagnosis
Some time later, a walk to school in freezing weather gave her hives all over her leg. Doctors initially thought she had Raynaud’s syndrome. This is due to the contraction of blood vessels, which causes circulation disorders in the extremities. It is usually triggered by cold.
“Over the years it got worse and worse, I started to worry and went to see so many specialists to get a diagnosis, but they had no idea that all of this could be triggered by the cold“, says the young woman. It is a joke of her mother which will make it possible to identify the evil from which she suffers.Once, she was chatting with a doctor in the hospital, and said to him “oh my daughter is allergic to cold” while laughing”, she continues. The health professional takes her seriously and asks her if she did the test with an ice cube, placing it on her arm. “I did that and waited a few minutes, then it swelled up, turned red and I had the shape of the ice cube on my arm, that’s how I was diagnosed.” She suffers from cold urticaria.
Serious consequences
Zuzanna Dmitruk has allergic reactions as soon as the thermometer falls below 10°C, and this is also valid for what she consumes. Cold drinks, ice creams and other cold products are banned from his diet. “In extreme cases, eating cold food can lead to choking, she specifies. Once I ate a lot of ice cream, it was before the diagnosis, it triggered a reaction in my throat and it swelled. ” The young woman no longer uses her freezer, and takes precautions for fresh products: if she has to eat cheese, she lets it rest for a few minutes at room temperature.
In terms of activity, she also cannot swim in water that is too cold, or ride a bicycle when the temperatures are cool. “On a daily basis, only my fingers are really swollen, she indicates. But in extreme cases, for example swimming, my hands become two and a half times larger than normal. (…) Everything I touch hurts, I just have to sit with my hands up and waitA doctor also advised him to avoid temperature changes in case his allergy gets worse, as it could be fatal. Far from being resigned, she shares her daily life and the reality of her allergy on her account tiktok. “A mother messaged me and said, “I just showed your TikTok to my little boy because he has it too and he thought he was lonely, now he knows he is not alone and that there are other people with this disease“, she says. I was so happy after reading this message.” One of his videos has been viewed over 6 million times.
@zuzdmi That’s not funny ice cream will kill me ##allergicreaction ##girlproblems ##cooking
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