Giving birth makes woman allergic to water
A NEW mum was over the moon about the birth of her baby girl — until she hopped in the shower and realised something had changed.
WHEN Cherelle Farrugia gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, she knew her life was going to change forever.
But aside from the emotional changes the 25-year-old Welsh mum was going through, her body had also gone through a drastic physical change.
Two months after she gave birth to Willow in January, Ms Farrugia began to realise her body was breaking out in painful and severely itchy hives every time she had a shower.
Ms Farrugia then spent weeks going through a process of elimination, trying to figure out why showering had become such a painful experience.
The Cardiff mum swapped out all of her products, assuming she was having an allergic reaction to one of them.
When that didn’t work she tried showering in cold, hot, lukewarm, even water the same temperature as her own body.
Then, she tried using bottled and filtered water to wash herself and jumped in a chlorine pool to see if she’d still react — and every time she still broke out in the painful hives.
She even changed her shower head, worried there might be mould in it she was allergic to.
Eventually, after a bit of Googling, Ms Farrugia suspected she had an extremely rare condition called Aquagenic Uticaria — only 35 people have reported having it in the whole world.
The condition causes urticaria, or hives, to develop rapidly on a person’s skin almost immediately after touching water, regardless of its temperature.
Speaking to theDaily Mail, Ms Farrugia said it took months to be officially diagnosed with the disease.
“It took a while because the first doctor I saw hadn’t really heard of it and thought I had heat-related hives so it took about three months for me to get an official diagnosis,” she said.
The new mum struggled with post-partum depression after giving birth to Willow and doctors believe her depression as well as the spike in her hormone levels during the pregnancy could’ve caused the painful condition to develop.
Ms Farrugia has since learnt when exactly her hives start to develop and tries to limit her showers to three minutes.
“It tingles at first and that’s how I know that I am about to react. Once the tingles start about a minute later my whole upper body is covered with hives which last anywhere between 30-60 minutes before they go back down again,” Ms Farrugia told the Daily Mail.
“I then make sure I am busy for the next hour or so because if I sit there and think about it I get really upset over it. So I usually play with my daughter or take the dog out for a walk to distract myself.”
Her “uncomfortable and very, very itchy” rash tends to occur after five minutes in water.
But the Cardiff mum breaks out even when she gets rained on, sweats or goes swimming.
Ms Farrugia attempted to reduce her showering, but after a month of that, she decided to just deal with the itchy rash, showering daily and just sitting in a dressing gown until the rash subsides.
Doctors also believe the condition is degenerative and Ms Farrugia worries that one day, even drinking water will be painful.
“I can drink water fine as I’m not affected internally however I have read that there are some people with the condition who can’t drink plain water as their throat swells,’ she said.
“The condition tends to be degenerative so one day I may not be able to drink it either.”
Ms Farrugia has come up with a number of ways to lessen the itchy hives because there’s still no cure for her rare condition.
She uses Aloe Vera to soothe the itching, “ironic” because it contains water, Ms Farrugia said.
The Cardiff mum also tries to dry off as quickly as she can and is currently having cognitive behavioural therapy.
Since realising what she was suffering from, Ms Farrugia started an Instagram page in a bid to raise awareness for the rare condition.