cold urticaria.

I've found it's easiest to talk about health topics that I can relate to so this week I picked another subject of which I've had issues with. Cold Urticaria is an allergy to cold temperatures and I've mentioned it before but I figured I'd go into more detail now. I actually didn't even have a name for this allergy till last week when the doctor who was discussing my asthma with me threw the name out there. Signs didn't appear till I was in third grade. I can still remember it now. I was dressed up as Pocahontas for the Thanksgiving day lunch at my elementary school and when it was time for recess I went outside as normal. Only this time things got weird because after about 15 minutes I broke out in hives in any place my skin was exposed to the outdoors. I went and complained to my mom who had been at the school helping out with the lunch and she took me to the school nurse who assumed I had come in contact with some form of allergen on the playground such as a plant. We sort of shrugged it off and the following winter it happened again while my brother was trying to teach me to snowboard on a small hill at my aunts house. At  this point we realized again it was my skin that was exposed to the cold air and we figured that must be the trigger.
Ever since then if my skin gets exposed to cold temperatures I'll break out in a red itchy rash and hives eventually appear. It's to the point that I'll break out in the water at the beach in the summer because of how much the temperature drops or if I hold a cold drink my hand will break out where contact is made. I've learned to live with it though. Often in the winter I stay indoors as much as possible and I try and avoid cold drinks or cold water in the summer. It sucks because it just started happening when I was really just beginning to like snow but that's the way things go. I can't enjoy most winter time activities like skiing or snowboarding or even snow ball fights but I'd much rather be rash free. Below I've added a recent picture of an outbreak as I was standing in line at a concert.