Fox10TV video: Chilling allergy - cold urticaria and anaphylaxis (embedded above).
Patients with cold urticaria "can have symptoms such as drops in blood pressure, redness, blushing, significant itchiness, even to the point with blood pressure drops that they can have a passing out. When people are going swimming, if they jump into a cold pool and they have a reaction where their blood pressure drops, they can actually faint and there have been drownings from it.
If you have it, eating an ice cream cone can cause lips to swell, hands can break out after holding a cold drink. Usually it's when you begin to warm up that symptoms start."
Testing procedures for diagnosis of physical urticarias depend on the cause (stimulus):
- Dermographism: Stroking with narrow object, e.g. a tongue depressor
- Cold urticaria: ice cube test
- Heat urticaria: test tube water at 44°C (111°F)
- Pressure urticaria: Sandbag test or a bag with heavy books (Middleton's Allergy textbook, 2 volumes)
- Vibratory urticaria: vibration with laboratory vortex for four minutes
- Cholinergic urticaria: exercise for 15-20 minutes or leg immersion in 44°C (111°F) bath
- Aquagenic urticaria: challenge with tap water at various temperatures
References:
A chilling allergy. Fox10TV.
"Young mother must wrap up all year round because she is allergic to the cold"http://goo.gl/w25WB - Cold urticaria in Daily Mail.
Treatment of cold urticaria by cold desensitization - AAAAI Ask the Expert, 2011.