Alexandra Allen, a 20-year-old American, has an extremely rare medical condition called Aquagenic Urticaria, although the condition is better known as "water allergy." It is one of the less than 100 reported cases of this condition and to date no cure has been found for it.

The first time the girl had a water reaction, she was 12, in the middle of summer break, and had spent most of her day swimming in a pool. When she returned home, she was covered with severe rash all over her body, but when she was taken to hospital, everyone believed she had some reaction to the chemicals used in the pool water.

The hives that appeared on his body whenever he got wet remained a mystery for about two years. One day she was reading a list of the ten weirdest illnesses ever recorded on the Internet, and all the symptoms of water allergy described her perfectly. She went with her parents to a hospital and two dermatologists did a simple test: they wet a cloth with pure water and touched it to her arm, which twenty minutes later was covered with red marks.

Alexandra Allen, 18, lives in Utah with family

In an interview with the New York Magazine website and told a little about what it is like to live with such a rare condition. To begin with, she explains that it is not an allergy but a dermatological disease. All humans naturally produce oils that help in maintaining the skin. In the case of those with this disease, these same oils become acidic when they come into contact with water, whether pure or not.

The young woman describes the sensation of contact with water as if something is sanding her skin violently. The first report of "water allergy" reported in 1963, and since then no one has been able to unravel what factors lead a person's body to develop the condition. To date the few data obtained indicate only that this is more common among women than men, usually manifesting during puberty.

The girl dreamed of being a marine biologist, but the simple contact with the water makes her skin like the one above in a matter of minutes

Since discovering her own aquagenic urticaria, Alexandra has had to adapt her entire life to suffer as little as possible from her eruptions. She doesn't eat meat or dairy - protein breakdown makes her sweat stronger - and only takes one bath a week in cold water, which causes fewer reactions than hot water and lasts an average of two minutes. The rest of the days, she cleans herself with products that do not carry water in the composition, because even this affects your skin.

She rinses her hands with cold water, runs through the night to sweat as little as possible, and even her tears cause the skin on her face to irritate. Even so, the girl can lead an almost normal life. The most inconvenient thing is that you have to carry a coat every day, even when the day is warm, to cover your rash, and always carry an EpiPen - a device that contains a dose of antihistamine, a substance that reduces the effects. caused by allergies.

One time she was at a party when suddenly someone came up with balloons filled with water and squirt guns. The girl told how hilarious it was to suddenly notice all her friends looking at her with a panicked expression. She described the situation as a unique moment of her life: having an entourage to protect her from water guns. But it's really hard to find the right time to tell that you're “allergic” to water during a date.

* Posted on 11/11/2015