Hello! Being allergic to cold is expensive.
[upbeat intro music]
Hello! My name's Max
and I have a condition called Cold Urticaria and it basically means I'm allergic to cold.
And because I have a health condition, there are hidden costs associated with that. Who
would have thought it cost money to be allergic to something? Well it does. If you want to
know more about Cold Urticaria and being allergic to cold, I will leave a playlist up here,
you should definitely go and check that out. Having any chronic health condition has hidden
costs. So I've decided to make my own little mini series about the hidden costs of health
conditions. First one being the hidden costs of being allergic to cold. Also going to include
things that have actual financial costs and things that are not so much monetary but have
cost me- Where are these little hairs coming from? Nope. Nope. Go away. Anyway... The first
one being central heating bills. I have had comments on some of my videos telling me to
just put a jumper on, and in actual fact my heating is on quite a lot, so I don't always
need a jumper. As you can imagine, having a warm house is very helpful when you have
Cold Urticaria. If you have a warm house, the less likely you are to just be allergic
to the air around you, you might still have allergic reactions to leaning on something
cold, or going in the fridge, or, I don't know if you open a window or something, but
having a warm house is key to managing Cold Urticaria at home. And that obviously comes
with a cost. A central heating bill will be higher. I'm very fortunate to live with housemates
and we split the cost of central heating and it's on a timer, so if I am cold I just get
into bed, but generally they're quite understanding or the fact that having a warm house is nice
for every body, especially for me, so I stay alive. Little bit of an exaggeration, probably
won't kill me. Moving on from that, hot water bills, which is kind of lumped on with the
central heating bill because in my house they're both gas powered I think. Long hot showers
are my best friend. Occasionally a bath but I generally have reactions to the parts of
my body that are not in the bath, even if they were all in the bath and then I get out
of the bath. It's not so bad in the shower. The hot water bill will probably be higher
if you are also allergic to cold, like me. Especially if you come in from outside and
it's cold and you warm up by getting in the shower for an hour... Not the most environmentally
friendly but you gotta do what you gotta do. Next. The gold standard treatment for Cold
Urticaria are prescription only medications (currently in the UK). That means that per
item, per month, it costs (currently) £9.00 each. That's £18 a month possibly, so the
medications I'm talking about are Fexofenadine which is an antihistamine that basically controls
all of the skin reactions mostly like hives or these- the ones in your face- that doesn't
make much sense, but fexofenadine is the gold standard antihistamine prescribed for Cold
Urticaria, and the other medication is a salbutamol inhaler which not everybody needs but I do
because it affects my lungs. More on that in a point in the future, but that also costs
money. I'm very fortunate to be very poor so I get free prescription medications otherwise
I would not be able to afford to manage my Cold Urticaria with these gold standard treatments.
And also if you are on Singulair- or Montelukast, depending where you are from and what you
call your drugs, that will also be- that is also a prescription only medication, so that
is another £9.00 that you have to pay just to manage your health condition. Another hidden
cost that I have actually not yet talked about- I'm a big advocate for wearing vogmasks to
manage your Cold Urticaria. Usually only relevant if you get facial hives or you get lung involvment
like I do, so if I go out in the cold and breathe cold air I wheeze like a bitch. And
wearing a vogmask is the easiest and most reliable way to prevent that, and it's more
than a bit of a wheeze, it's pain and it's kind of internal itching, it feels horrible,
it's really hard to describe, more of why I wear a vogmask up here. But those vogmasks
need to be replaced. A part of the reason that I have such a large collection of vogmasks
is because I got them cheap off Wish, and the more you have the less I need to replace
them. So if I wore one mask all the time within a year I would have to replace it, each mask
has a lifetime of about a year, but that does vary according to the brand of mask that you
use, why you use it, and how often you use it, and how often you wash it. Lots of factors
and with a big collection like mine, I have to replace them less. But I have already had
to replace two because they just- the material kind of shrank and it was just not effective
anymore. Masks need to be replaced and if you are using upmarket masks such as a cambridge
mask or a vogmask brand vogmask- because they're like Henry the Hoover. Not all vacuum cleaners
are hoovers, but all hoovers are vacuum cleaners, that's kind of what vogmask is. You can just
type vogmask and you get many brands including Vogmask as a brand itself. Confusing I know.
But if you use those two brands that I can think of, there are probably more, they are
quite expensive, so I think they are about £25 or £30, plus shipping, whereas the ones
I get off Wish, they are about £1 each, with about £1 shipping, and they take ages to
arrive, but because I only use them for cold it's the cheapest way for me to do it. If
you have a more sensitive allergy or a particular allergy or you are trying to filter something
out, like an actual substance, I would not recommend the Wish vogmasks, or if you try
them, you know, I warned you. They might not be as protective as they say on the website.
Just an FYI. Another cost of Cold Urticaria that you might not consider, and a lot of
people will consider this a luxury, but it is not, is public transport costs because
I cannot walk that far in the cold. Anything more than two or three bus stops away is beyond
the distance I can go before I start to feel itchy all over my body, before I start to
feel dizzy, before I start passing out, it is not cute, I cannot walk that far in the
cold. And if I didn't use public transport, I would be basically limited to my house and
the shop up the road. I've got places to go too, so the cost of public transport is definitely
a hidden cost of Cold Urticaria, and that includes buses and taxis. I mostly use buses
because I'm not made of money, but occasionally I will have to get a taxi to somewhere the
bus doesn't go. This also includes car costs from having to drive anywhere but I don't
have a car, so I can't tell you how much more expensive that might be. But it's there. I
have in the past had partners drive me from my house to the shop up the road so... The
next not so much an actual physical monetary cost, but it has cost me a good deal of my
mental health. Largely because being stuck inside all winter and not able to really go
out and socialise that much kind of makes you a bit lonely and it does not help the
depression goblins that really thrive in Winter. My mental health suffers when it's colder
because I can't go out and do anything about it and not that many people pay visits, but
I'm very grateful for the people that do, or the people that drive me to somewhere we
can hang out, that also works. another hidden cost is the cancellation of plans and that
can cost you a reputation, if you are well known for showing up and then suddenly you
get Cold Urticaria and you can no longer show up, sometimes you have to cancel because it's
too cold. Sometimes it can cost you actual money, so there's been times where I've paid
for a ticket to a show but then it's snowed and I can't leave the house, so I've had to
cancel going to the show that I've paid for, and that;s money I don't have, and you can't
always sell the ticket on the fay of, it doesn't always work. Similarly it's cost me a social
life, again, because I can't really go out much in winter and then people get used to
me not going and then they get used to not inviting me, and then I'm just lonely and
no social life. Finally it has cost me friends because either they don't understand, I think
when you stop hanging out with people fr a long period of time people do generally just
drift away and so many people have drifted away since my Cold Urticaria got to a point
where me going outside is not brilliant, and that I've had to actively avoid going outside
sometimes, so it has cost me close friendships because we're just not as close anymore because
I never see them, but I hope that they know that I'm still there. I've tried to make that
clear and I post on Facebook about it and on Instagram but sometimes you just don't
really know. It has cost me some friendships and some of my sanity. Those are some of the
hidden costs of being allergic to cold, the hidden costs of cold urticaria, there are
probably more but some of them I thought of but it's just a general cost, like buying
hats and scarves and gloves because I lose them, that's just a cost of me being clumsy.
Don't forget to like this video, drop a comment down below if I've missed a hidden cost of
cold urticaria. Subscribe to my channel if you haven't already so you can stay up to
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