Mystery solved.

Every year during our family vacation, my aunt and I take morning walks before most of my family is even up. It's quiet, there's beautiful scenery, and I'm getting my exercise in for the day. It's wonderful.

Except for the last couple of years while we were on our walks, I noticed that I would break out in hives when my skin got too cold and was wearing shorts or a short sleeved shirt. It was the most bizarre thing I'd ever seen. They'd only last as long as I was chilled - as soon as I'd take a shower and warm up, they'd go away. So this year, I prepared by bringing long pants and long sleeved shirts for our walks so I wouldn't get cold, and it seemed to work fine. But I still wondered what it was that was causing the weird outbreaks. I figured it was related to the cold, but I just thought it was me and found a way around it.

Until today when I was reading one of my regular websites and noticed that the blogger said she had the exact same ailment as me, and it has a name. It's called cold urticaria (click here for more information) and it's a chronic reactive skin disorder that's characterized by abnormal reddening of the skin, hives and itching after exposure to cold temperatures. It's basically an allergic reaction to cold. There are two types: familial (hereditary) and acquired. The familial type is extremely rare, and I don't know of anyone else in my family that has it, so I'm thinking I've got the acquired type. The only way to treat it is to avoid cold temperatures (duh) or take an allergy pill right before exposure to cold to prevent hives. And, there are more severe cases where a person can go into shock from the exposure, which I don't need to worry about.

I'm just glad to finally know there's an actual name to what I have, and that there's a way to treat it.

Gotta love the internets.