‘Allergic’ to Her Own Sweat

Caitlin McComish, a promising collegiate soccer player, set out for a run in her hometown of White House, Ohio, in May 2013 when she began to have trouble breathing and went into life-threatening anaphylactic shock.

“It’s never the same, it’s always like a group of symptoms,” said McComish, 20.

It wasn’t until she was referred to the Cleveland Clinic that doctors discovered she was having an inflammatory reaction to her own sweat.

She had a relatively common condition in an unusually serious form: cholinergic urticarial.

Technically, McComish doesn’t have an allergy, rather she has a hives disorder when her skin is exposed to heat and sweat.

David Lang, chairman of the department of allergy and clinical immunology at The Cleveland Clinic and McComish’s doctor.

“It’s a condition where people have itching and swelling and the major issue is heat or sweat as a provoking factor,” said Lang, who has treated numerous athletes, including professionals, with the condition.

Lang confirmed McComish’s diagnosis with an “exercise challenge.” McComish, a nursing major, has been medically disqualified from competing by NCAA rules because of a separate diagnosis P.O.T.S., a form of dysautonomia, but she has no regrets.

“The harder I worked, the worse I got, until my favorite coach said, ‘There is a difference between working hard and working smart.’