When the heat in her car stopped working one day in high school, Brooklyn Ramos’ legs began to itch to point that she could no longer focus on the road. She had no idea why.

When Ramos later told her friends that she was diagnosed with an allergy to cold weather, they thought she was kidding.

She wasn’t.

“It’s an allergic reaction, and I get hives,” Ramos said of her allergy to the cold, known as anti-cholinergic urticaria, or cold urticaria.

Winter in Ohio can be an unpleasant time for Ramos, a third-year student at Ohio State. According to the AccuWeather.com,
Columbus, Ohio has an average temperature of 38 degrees between January and February.

“It’s really, really bad when I’m walking in the cold,” Ramos said. “It gets to the point that my face is breaking out because I have hives, and it looks like I have acne.”

While many students begrudge walking to campus through snow and sludge, the consequences are often too serious for Ramos to risk.

“It prevents me from walking to the library because I live off campus, and there’s no way I’m walking all the way over there,” said Ramos, who lives near 13th Avenue and Summit Street.

To prevent hives, Ramos now takes a daily dose of Loratadine, a prescription medication.

The symptoms appeared suddenly during the winter of her junior year of high school.

“When we went to the doctor, we had to find what the common trend that caused the hives was,” she said.

Symptoms include fatigue and headaches, said Maggie Lopacki, a
registered nurse at the OSU Medical Center. But the diagnosis is simple, requiring only an ice cube.

“Cold urticaria can be diagnosed by placing an ice cube on exposed skin for several minutes,” according to the Mayo Clinic Web site. “If you have cold urticaria, a raised red bump will form after the ice cube is removed.”

In addition to cold weather, cold water can cause serious outbreaks, according to Mayo Clinic, and swimming in cold water is the most common cause of severe, widespread reaction.

The allergy is uncommon, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine Web site, with two to three cases per 100 people.

Ramos said she has met only one other person with the allergy.

While in class, Ramos was scratching her legs, which caught her teacher’s attention.

“I had just gotten there and my teacher thought I had something so she asked why I was itching,” Ramos said. “I had to tell the class and there was a kid in the lecture room that was like ‘Oh my God, I have that too!'”

Some treatments for the allergy require a doctor, Ramos said.

“People manage it at home by taking antihistamines, rest and an increased amount of fluids,” Lopacki said. “If you don’t take care of it, you could probably get bronchitis, pneumonia or a severe sinus infection.”

But the allergic reaction can also be fatal.

Allergy sufferers “can go into anaphylactic shock, which can lead to cardiovascular collapse and death,” said third-year Alainna Ipjian, a student nurse assistant at OSU Medical Center.

Lopacki said the elderly, children and those with weak immune systems should speak with a doctor about treatment if their symptoms last for a long period of time.

“There’s not a way to really protect yourself,” Ramos said. “But I would definitely recommend that people find an alternative form of transportation to walking.”