This is the world of Rachel Warwick, who is allergic to water... Any
contact with water whatsoever – even her own sweat – leaves Rachel with
a painful, swollen and intensely itchy rash which can last for several
hours...
Otherwise known as aquagenic urticaria, the condition is like being
stung by a bush of particularly pernicious nettles, combined with the
malaise of hay fever, every single day...
Technically, the condition isn’t actually an allergy at all, since it’s
likely caused by an immune reaction to something within the body, rather
than an over-reaction to something foreign, such as pollen or
peanuts... In theory, anti-histamines should work every time.
In
practice, the drugs have decidedly mixed results... All they needed was a drug which could block IgE’s effects. And as
luck would have it, there was already a drug on the market which could
do just that. Omalizumab was originally developed as a treatment for asthma... Since then scientists have discovered omalizumab is effective against
even the most obscure forms of urticaria – from reactions to sunlight to
changes in temperature, to friction.
Here is the relevant page from the Genetic and Rare Diseases Information Center at the NIH.
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