I don't know if I can breastfeed my baby because of the pressure urticaria

I don't know if I can breastfeed my baby because of the pressure urticaria

Even those who have ever had a bout of urticaria cannot fathom what it is like to live with chronic spontaneous or pressure urticaria on a daily basis, autoimmune diseases of unknown origin that cause hives and angioedema. Diana Diéguez has been suffering from both pathologies for ten years. And it's frustrating. «If I take weight with my hands they swell, if I beat an egg too. And I have to take three pairs of shoes in the car, each one wider, to change throughout the day due to the pressure. There are days when I wake up with one eye and a swollen lip... it's desperate. It limits you in your daily life and undermines you psychologically."

After several visits to the emergency room and dermatologists, and many, many sleepless nights due to itching and pain, in 2011 she was diagnosed with both diseases. "I associated it with work, so I changed my life, my diet, my clothes, but nothing... my body generates histamine as a defense mechanism."

Thanks to the treatment, Diana no longer suffers so much from hives or angioedema, "but I have gained a lot of weight, four or five kilos" for each dose of treatment. Although it would be better to say that she no longer suffered from them, because Diana, who had wanted to be a mother for some time, has been delaying the illusion of her, until a year ago. «I spoke with my doctor and he recommended me to be without the medication for a few months and when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, just the day before going to the consultation, it came out that I was pregnant. On Wednesday, by the way, it came out of accounts. «I have spent worse days and others halfway decent. I get spontaneous outbreaks once a week in the third trimester, in the first they were daily, but the inflammation due to pressure is always. As I have gained weight due to pregnancy, I notice more pressure on my feet, and I have this form of hives on all sides of my body.

"My intention is to breastfeed my baby, but I know that the pressure urticaria is going to make my nipples inflamed, and I don't know if I'm going to be able to, but I want to try. If I can't, I'll give him a bottle and then I'll start the treatment”, Diana explains to “The patient's window”, a section promoted by Novartis.

But, is it necessary to stop pharmacological treatment in pregnant women or during lactation? "It is not that it is poorly suspended, it is the discretion of the doctor who takes it, but the drug that the patient uses can be used according to the available scientific information, especially if the urticaria is very bothersome and symptomatic," explains Dr. Jorge Spertino, assistant dermatologist at the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, in Barcelona.

The doctor emphasizes that “spontaneous chronic urticaria is not an allergic disease. Between 40 and 50% of cases are autoimmune, and the rest are idiopathic, that is, due to unknown causes. And it is that “there is not a single type of urticaria. Although the allergic subtype exists, it occurs very infrequently and symptoms do not usually last more than 72 hours. In contrast, by definition, chronic urticaria requires daily symptoms for at least six weeks,” says Dr. Spertino.

The symptoms «are hives that patients usually call wheals and angioedema that usually presents as swelling of the eyelids or lips. The first last less than 24 hours in one place and the second 24 hours or more. This disease affects 0.6% of the population and the patient profile is a person between 20 and 40 years of age, of average age, and above all women, since this disease is twice as prevalent in women as in men. In addition, the usual thing is that this pathology lasts between one and five years, although it lasts more than ten years in 5-10% of patients, but that is unusual. Most of the time it disappears”, details the dermatologist.

“In the case of pressure urticaria –he continues–, there are no concrete prevalence data. But since between 20 and 30% of patients with chronic spontaneous urticaria are associated with pressure urticaria, it could be estimated that it affects 0.15% of the Spanish population. And in this case, patients usually have this disease between six and nine years. The symptoms are swelling "and hives from the pressure of the rubber of the sock, on the hands when lifting weight, on the soles of the feet when walking, etc.," specifies Dr. Spertino, who "recommends patients not to take nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs if they have hives because it can make symptoms worse.” And he sends a message of hope: "In most patients, good control of the symptoms is achieved."

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