When winter was starting to end and the weather warmed up, Everett started getting swelling in various places on his body.
First, it was shortly after waking up in the morning, at around breakfast time, when his fingers and hands would start swelling making it difficult for him to make a fist. It was difficult to pin down whether or not it hurt or cause discomfort, but in the end I don’t think his hands hurt all that much, or were itchy, just uncomfortable.
Sometimes then, Everett would complain of painful feel and at one time Shannon brought him home from school for the day because he got swollen hands and feet it while in the middle of class.
The first couple of times this happened, we game him some Benadryl and ibuprofen, and it goes away after an hour or two. But I’m thinking that it actually just goes away on its own.
It has happened another handful of times since. Sometimes it’s quite striking, like pockets of swelling (though not blisters) around his face and ears, or spots on his body. Sometimes it involves his legs and it seems like it itches, but not always.
At first I wondered about and arthritis of some sort, but I don’t think it actually involves the joints. Plus the timing of it is weird. Why would it occur at around 9am, an hour or two before Everett awoke, rather than right in the morning, awaken him from night, or towards the end of the day before going to bed? It seems like it was correlated to cold, like say he is eating breakfast at the cold kitchen countertop, or after getting cold swimming, or outside doing an orienteering activity.
It’s June now and the weather is warming up, and it seems like the symptoms are not coming up as frequently. The last time it borderline started was when we were at Sylvan Lake playing in the lake where Everett got cold after being in the water, but it is getting better.
I think he has something called “cold urticaria,” a condition where you break out in hives like any other allergy, except to cold temperature. Definitely weird, but certainly not as bad as something like arthritis.
We’re hoping this is just a weird kid thing and it is something that Everett can grow out of. In the meantime, we’ve been trying to keep an eye on when it occurs, which seems to be at times of cold exposure, and avoid these situations.
