Allergic to the flu?

The last few days have been rough, friends. Just as I thought I was nearly over the nagging little cold that had been dogging me for nearly two weeks, I came down with the flu, or some kind of fever/cough/congestion bug that pretty much laid me flat for four days. Just as it seemed that I was on the mend from that, I broke out in head to toe hives that drove me out looking for medical relief.

After a lot of negative replies about exposure to new foods, toxic chemicals, different environments, etc., the doctor told me that he thought that it was my body expressing a stress reaction to the previous illness. Except he said it in completely indecipherable medical lingo, of course.

What the heck? Can this really happen, or is it just something they say when they hand you the prescriptions for the steriods and antihistimines so they can look like they actually know what’s going on?

Your immune system was out of sorts or in overdrive. Hives are an immune response. Under stress, things that normally don’t trigger an immune response can suddenly cause a reaction (such as a sudden allergic reaction to something you previously experienced without a problem).

It can even happen when not under stress, but immune system fluctuations are usually at a time of direct or indirect stress.