:rolleyes:
Assuming we are really talking about water, not chlorine, not any other contaminant, how are these women in the UK(all cases are women in the UK hmm) possibly living.
One says she can only drink cola which is you know mostly water, is there anything at all behind this?
But it’s the Daily Mail! Well known for a century as the bastion of legitimate journalism!
The one who can drink only cola is, herself, mostly water. I don’t see how this can be an allergy. Perhaps there could be a skin condition that makes getting wet painful?
Originally posted by Wikipedia:
:dubious:
Wikihoaxer maybe?
Unless that same hoaxer has been inserting articles in papers worldwide and even sent a woman who claims to have this disease to the Tyra show(clip I found) then no , I’m not saying it is a real disease BUT there are people claiming to suffer from it.
I dunno about the veracity, but in typical DM style the article is ridiculous.
Her husband needs to stay home to care for her?! Wtf? Does he jump in front of any droplets flying her way?
Also, she can wear gloves to do the washing up, or use a dishwasher.
Also, her hair looks dyed to me. That would require extra rinsing.
And then the picture, she’s wearing the same blouse in both, and in one she’s crying. Why did she do that for a DM picture? Burn her skin by fake crying for a picture? Come on!
Also, if it hurts your skin, then don’t shower at all. I’m pretty sure you could clean yourself without water. Didn’t the Romans use oil? There must be some sort of wipes.
It’s just…ridiculous Daily Mail claptrap. I’m sure some people have skin reactions to water, but this article at least (who knows about the woman), is ott. But of course “it’s absolutely true because I read it in the Daily Mail”.
A) It’s very rare
B) It’s not an allergy in that it doesn’t cause a histamine release*, like your allergy to flowers or an allergy to shrimp that causes the throat to close up
C) We’re not entirely sure what it is
and
D) Yes, it’s real
I’m not sure why she thinks she can drink only Coke; that part seems to be hysterics in action. Aquagenic urticaria (assuming that’s what she has) affects the skin, not the stomach. But it’s also certainly possible she’s got something else in addition to the a.u., or that she’s sick of burning her lips and cheeks from drips of water, and the shape of a Coke bottle or can prevents dribbles, or something else complicated and strange. Never underestimate people’s ability to be complicated and strange, especially when it comes to medical issues!
Have you ever gotten dry, irritated skin from a pool or hot tub? Your cheeks ever burn after a really long cry? That’s what this is, only it happens with a much wider range of water temperatures and chlorine content, and the reaction may be more dramatic and more painful. Most doctors think it is indeed the chlorine or other chemicals in the water like salt causing the skin to burn and itch, even though it may be very dilute.
Testing consists of dabbing tap water on one inner arm with a cottonball, and distilled water on the other. If you react to the tap water, you have aquagenic urticaria. I’ve yet to read a case study of anyone reacting to distilled water.
Treatment is to avoid skin contact with water as much as possible. That means sponge baths most days, short showers with the water controlled to the temperature that hurts you the least, and no swimming. Some docs prescribe creams, commonly capsaisin, that act as a counter irritant to the nerves, and make the itching or burning feel better. Ultraviolet B therapy may help, and there are some other drug classes (including antihistamines and beta blockers) that some doctors prescribe.
*I know the article implicates histamine, but I went back to my texts and no, there’s no histamine release prior to the symptoms of a.u., unless there’s some very new research I’m unaware of. When the patient scratches, she can cause an inflammatory response and of course histamine is part of that, but it’s the scratching causing the histamine release, not the water.
Implausible to say the least, since as said people are mostly made of water. You’d think she’d just die.
EDIT, after reading WhyNot’s post: OK; affecting only the skin, that makes more sense.
Thank you that is exactly what I was wondering, then it is really not the water but instead chlorine or other chemicals.
Yes, it seems to be basically just (and I hate to use the word “just”, because that belittles some really major league suffering, physical and social, that people really do experience) super duper sensitive skin that reacts to chemicals found in tap and spring water, tears and sweat.
Coca-cola is made with distilled water - it may have less contaminants like chlorine in it. As long as she’s not reacting to anything else in the soda it’s not totally bizarre once you sit down and think about it.
About 25 years ago I heard of this, from a summer camp nurse who had a camper with the condition. She, too, drank only coke, or distilled water.
Bottom line, as strange as it sounds, it may be that coke is one of the few “safe” beverages for her.
I suppose, but again…this is a *skin *condition, right? So are they afraid they’re going to spill their beverage?
Aquagenic urticaria is indeed real, if rare. A few mechanisms have been proposed to explain it. I favor the first one.
Per UpToDate.com:
Several researchers have proposed that water is primarily acting as a solvent in aquagenic urticaria, solubilizing an antigen that then permeates the skin and activates dermal mast cells. Water may interact with sebum (the oily substance produced by sebaceous glands in the skin) to form a substance capable of acting as a direct mast cell degranulator, resulting in histamine release . It is possible that different antigens in different skin layers are involved. A number of studies have provided evidence supporting this mechanism.
Another theory suggested that activation of the cholinergic pathway was essential for the formation of aquagenic urticaria, based upon the ability of the acetylcholine antagonist scopolamine to suppress wheal formation when applied to the skin before water exposure in two patients. However, other studies did not find evidence for a cholinergic mechanism, as pretreatment with atropine did not suppress subsequent wheal formation.
Speaking as someone with food allergies, the stress of wondering if what you’re about to touch/consume is going to make you seriously ill or kill you can be ferocious at times. What looks absolutely paranoid and bizarre to those not so afflicted starts to make perfect sense to those with the condition. I reject foods that might be contaminated because past experience has been that bad that I don’t want to risk another case of severe reaction.
Spilling of one’s beverage is rare, but we’ve all done it at some time in the past and likely will do again at some point in the future. Perhaps beverages with non-distilled water have caused reactions in her lips, tongue, even throat. Perhaps she doesn’t want every sip to become a “game” of analysis and fear. So she sticks to what she KNOWS, absolutely, is a safe beverage so she has time and energy for other things her life.
It seems to be an obsession but it might be just the opposite - by restricting herself to what seems to be an extreme degree she needs to think LESS about what she’s drinking than if she consumed a wider range of beverages.
With kids this is even worse - I’ve known any number of school lunch time bullies who think jostling other kids to make them spill things, or upending food into their laps, or other hijinks, to be absolutely hilarious. Less a problem with adults, but just this past winter I had a coworker in his 30’s who did stuff like that, including an attempt to smear my face with spaghetti sauce (I react to tomatoes like most people react to poison ivy) and telling me to “get over it” when I got mad.
So yeah, concerns about spilling things might not be out of line in some cases.
What was he sentenced to?
I don’t see how this works - Coke is far from distilled water when mixed, even if distilled water is used to start with, plus there is some salt in it (one of the the putative irritants).
But even if it is salt or chlorine that causes irritation, even in minute amounts, it would make as much sense as being allergic to water, when one looks at the chemical composition of the human body, which is 0.15% sodium and chlorine by mass (not all is sodium chloride). There are also people who claim to be sensitive to sulfur (0.25%) and other elements found in the body.
Be not forgetful of considering this old chestnut: somatoform disorder.
Hey, I’m not a doctor and I don’t pretend to understand how the disorder works, all I can say is that this is the second person I’ve heard of with it and both of them say only Coke is safe to drink (and distilled water). If salt isn’t a problem but chlorine is maybe that’s the difference. I dunno.
A surprising amount of treating such rare disorders is trial and error - “Well, Coke doesn’t cause a reaction, but all this other stuff does, so stick with Coke even though we’re not sure why it’s OK.”
Quoted because, as the mom of a gluten free kid, I don’t think this can be overstated. Yes, I absolutely hear you. It’s far easier to stick to limited known safe choices than to micromanage or trial-and-error your way through a wider selection of possibly unsafe foods.
I never give anyone a hard time with their food choices in real life, I promise. But I do admit that, yes, I am curious - why only Coke? Does Sprite hurt, or does she just not like the taste? Dasani water (the bottled water sold by Coca-Cola)? It’s totally none of my business, for sure, yet I am still a curious little monkey in cyber-space.
Dasani adds minerals to their water, so it might cause the same reaction as tap water.