Hi all - I wanted to share my similar experience with dermatographia. I have always wondered if the covid vaccines had anything to do with my hives and it is quite eye opening to hear others' stories on this discussion board. The booster seems to be a theme here - I got my booster on March 14th, 2022 in preparation for a trip to Aruba and right around two weeks later the hives started appearing. The hives also came with another interesting twist - I developed a shrimp allergy at the same exact time. I have never been allergic to a single thing my entire life (I am now 30) and it seemed like such strange timing to have happened right when the hives started. I went to my primary care physician who of course prescribed ceterizine to help combat the hives. Bloodwork was taken and proved that the shrimp allergy was positive. I was referred to an allergist that ran a skin prick test for every allergy they had available. Aside from the shrimp, the only other allergy that returned was mold and dust which is probably pretty common. They also did a skin scrape test for dermatographia and came back to say it was the worst case they had ever seen. I'm sure you all can imagine how inflamed my arm got just from the blood pressure test alone. After all of that, I was basically told there was nothing else they could do and that I should stick to the allergy medication I was already taking. I brought up xolair from hearing others' experiences and the allergist was incredibly against it since the cetirizine was "working perfectly fine and was safe". Yes it helps with the hives but doesn't eliminate them completely. The allergist also let me know that they don't administer xolair because their office is small and it requires monitoring after you get it so that is most likely why it wasn't recommended. It hasn't been a full year yet since the booster but like others have mentioned, I am really hoping that the hives go away after the year or year and a half mark. I live a healthy lifestyle, work out regularly and eat pretty healthy. I know there is not full proof that the booster or covid vaccine caused this because others of course had chronic hives many years prior to 2020 and the existence of the virus. However, it is truly discouraging to even think that something you thought could be trusted being developed by scientists and was encouraged to help the greater good of the population could have such negative consequences. I truly do not want to get another vaccine again in my life after this experience and hope this issue comes to light more over time.

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