Mother's allergy to water means she can't drink, bathe or wipe away her son's tears



Unlike most mothers, Michaela Dutton doesn’t run to wipe away her young son’s tears when he falls over and hurts his knee.

That’s because even a drop of water can trigger a painful burning rash on her skin.

The birth of three-year-old Mitchell triggered a rare allergy in the 21-year-old, leaving her unable to touch or drink water.

Rare: Michaela Dutton's problem began after giving birth to Mitchell, now three



She is also unable to hold her son for more than a few minutes in case he sweats on her.

Her condition, known as aquagenic urticaria, affects only one in 230million people worldwide.

If Miss Dutton’s skin comes in to contact with water, it leaves her skin weeping with red welts and blisters.



She cannot drink tea, coffee or fruit juice because they make her throat blister and swell up.

Instead she survives on copious amounts of Diet Coke, which her body tolerates, even though it contains carbonated water.

Miss Dutton said the condition has left her scared to leave the house – in case it rains. To keep herself clean, she jumps into the shower for ten seconds once a week, and has to make do with quick wipedowns using a flannel the rest of the time.

Even these brief contacts with water cause her condition to flare up.

'Burning sensation': Miss Dutton can only shower for ten seconds a week



She said yesterday: ‘The condition has placed a terrible strain on what I can do.

‘I can’t really hold Mitchell because if he sweats or dribbles or spills a drink on me I get covered in sore itchy lumps. I can’t even wipe his tears away or bathe him.

‘It’s an excruciating burning pain and is unbearable – it makes my head feel so painful I feel like shaving my head to try and get cooler.’

Doctors have been left baffled by the condition, which they believe was caused by a hormonal imbalance brought on by giving birth.

Miss Dutton, from Walsall, said the condition became apparent as soon as she had a bath for the first time a few days after she gave birth in October 2005.

Dr Adrian Morris, a urticaria specialist, said: ‘Childbirth is an interesting time in terms of urticaria. I’ve heard of some patients getting better, and others falling ill with the condition at this time.’

Miss Dutton – a full-time mother who lives with her parents, Mark, 44, and Teresa, 40 – said the condition had left her ‘a prisoner in my own body’.

She said: ‘I don’t see my friends any more because they wrongly think it’s contagious.

‘I hope me speaking out about this raises awareness of it and a cure can one day be found.’

Medical opinion is divided but the condition is thought to be caused by the release of histamine – the same substance which makes insect bites painful and itchy – in sufferers’ skin cells.

Experts at Wolverhampton’s New Cross Hospital tried antihistamine drugs and ultraviolet light therapy to try to increase the resilience of Miss Dutton’s skin cells to water, but so far they have had no success.

Nina Goad, from the British Association of Dermatologists, said that only around 30 cases of aquagenic urticaria had been documented worldwide.

She said: ‘The disorder is extremely rare and there is no known cure as yet.

‘We do not yet fully understand the precise mechanisms that trigger the weals.’

Fact File: Water allergy



Considering our bodies are around 60 per cent water, it seems one of life's more implausible conditions.

But aquagenic urticaria, or water allergy, is one of a number of forms of urticaria - such as aversions to the sun and extreme cold or exercise (which causes sweating, producing water) - that also causes the skin to break out in painful hives and welts.

Only around 30-40 people worldwide are thought to have been diagnosed with the condition, which was first described in 1964.

Within minutes of the skin making contact with water, rashes appear which can last for anything from 15 minutes to two hours or more.

In severe cases, such as Miss Dutton's, sufferers suffer similar symptoms in their throat if they drink water.

Although the exact triggers for the condition remain a mystery, many practitioners in the field believe that the rashes are caused by histamines - or chemicals - released by mast cells in the skin when by our bodies when we have a reaction, in this case when skin makes contact with water.

The release of the histamines then cause the welts and rashes to appear on the skin.



They can appear in various shapes and sizes anywhere on the body, triggered by water of all types (such as tap/sea/bottled) any temperature.

Others believe could be due to a toxic response when water touches the skin, or to an extreme sensitivity to ions in the water.

Antihistamine drugs or steroids usually provide some relief for the itching caused by the welts, but will not cure aquagenic urticaria.

Ultra Violet light therapy treatment of the mast cells, in an effort to make them more resilient to water and therefore less likely to release histamine in sufferers of the condition, is another experimental treatment.

It has been been tried by Miss Dutton without success.



According to the British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology, urticaria can affect one in five of the population at sometime in their lives.

