Water. A blessing or a curse?

Ayowie Aimiuwu and Tomi Olukoya

Think back to your childhood, having a bubble bath, playing with your rubber duckies, and laughing full of joy. Then imagine the water becoming hot lava, blistering your skin, suffocating your lungs, removing all joy you felt and replacing it with excruciating pain.

Would you believe that for some, these things could happen within seconds? Well, this is the case for 50 known sufferers of Aquagenic Urticaria, the cause of which is unknown but may be due to a substance in water that triggers an immune response.

Imagine being allergic to a substance that makes up about 70 percent of the earth and almost as much of your own body. For some, this rare allergy to water is a harsh reality.

Eighteen-month-old Ivy Angerman, is the latest and youngest to be diagnosed with such a condition. Ivy gets symptoms anytime she cries or sweats and now it has been discovered that when she has a bath she blisters up due to full body contact with water.
Aquagenic urticaria causes sufferers to break out in hives after their skin comes into contact with water so unfortunately for Ivy she will never be able to enjoy the luxury of swimming at the beach or visiting a water park with friends. Ivy's mother fears for her future and sadly comments, 'I'm going to have to teach her to not cry'.

Since Ivy's diagnosis, her family have had to adapt to her condition.

Ms Angerman, commented: 'We've got down to giving her one bath a week, her skin looks like she's getting washed in bleach, I'm effectively washing my daughter in bleach’.

Though the cause of this disease is unknown, according to Medical Daily, there seems to be a connection to the chromosome 2q21 where the disease is located as certain patterns have been observed. People who have this disease are more likely to have lactose intolerance which is also caused by chromosome 2q21.

Aquagenic urticaria normally develops in teens during puberty (not exclusively, as demonstrated by Ivy’s case) and seems to be more common in women than men. But, with such a small sample group of 50 known sufferers, it is hard to determine the difference between coincidence, correlation and causation.

Some doctors believe that patients with a hyposensitive immune system who are in contact with allergy triggers are more likely to develop Aquagenic Urticaria. The theories of the cause range from the belief it may be due to sensitivity to various chemical additives in water and that skin mast cells that are weakened might interfere with water to give skin a sensation.

Despite the enigmatic nature of the cause of Aquagenic Urticaria, the burning sensation is caused by the release of histamine, which is similar to symptoms of any other allergy. Histamine is a neuro transmitter, which causes the blood vessels to swell or dilate so the white blood cells can quickly locate and attack an infection which can be triggered by allergies or pathogens.

Therefore, treatments involve antihistamines to try and suppress this process. Steroids, ultraviolet b light treatments and creams which act as a barrier between the skin and water have all been proven to be effective.

This unknown disease is still a mystery for doctors all around the world. The fact that the body can have such a severe reaction to the very substance that makes 70% of it still baffles the greatest medical minds

As the medical world advances, we can only hope to learn more about Aquagenic Urticaria, so that Ivy and others just like her can have a normal life where they can bathe, swim, sweat and cry without immense pain. For Ivy’s sake, we hope that day is sooner rather than later.