Growing up, I noticed that my arms and legs would turn red easily at the slightest friction or scratch, and I was prone to developing the occasional rash or welt.My skin remained sensitive even as I stepped into adulthood, but in September last year, things took a turn for the worse.What had been small rashes evolved into large red patches on random parts of my body. Instead of being irritating and uncomfortable, now they were intensely prickly, bringing on a burning sensation. At one point, my entire back was inflamed.I was gripped by an incessant need to scratch, and started waking up in the middle of the night to find myself scratching, even in my sleep.
A dermatologist later told me that my condition wasn't just "sensitive skin". I had chronic hives – and I was suffering my first major flare-up.The causes of chronic hives aren't always clear-cut, she told me. While things like certain foods, medications, infections and stress can make symptoms worse for some people, they aren't necessarily the root cause. In fact, from what I have learnt, doctors often aren't able to pinpoint a specific trigger.She prescribed one antihistamine tablet, twice a day. It worked at first, but after about six months, some rashes started breaking through.On my dermatologist's advice, I doubled my antihistamine dosage. I kept this up for a while, but the thought of being indefinitely dependent on medication unsettled me.At a loss, I took a friend's advice and explored alternative treatment. A Western medical herbalist recommended I try a course of gut-healing supplements – and go on a temporary low-histamine diet to lower my body's histamine overload. Little did I realise that a simple diet would go on to impact me as much as it did.CHANGING MY DIET WAS PART OF HEALINGBefore this, I had no idea what a "low-histamine diet" even entailed.After a consultation with my herbalist and some deeper research online, I learnt that I had to choose foods that were fresh, unprocessed and naturally had lower histamine levels than others. High on the "no" list: fermented foods such as soy sauce.
