Aimee Walker
A woman has opened up about how she is ‘allergic to water’ and how it happened during puberty.
Niah Selway, from Hastings, East Sussex, has been diagnosed with the extremely rare skin condition called Aquagenic Pruritus and she claims showers would trigger it as a teen.
Speaking in a video shared on TikTok, she said: “I wasn’t born with this condition, but it became worse through my teenage years, as I went through puberty.
Watch as the 23-year-old opens up about being allergic to water in the clip below…
“I started to have allergic reactions to my showers, which became more and more frequent as time passed.”
When the 23-year-old originally went to the doctors about the condition six years ago, they told her it was most likely due to hormone changes and although they offered some forms of treatment, none of it worked.
Selway explained: “After many attempted treatments to lessen my symptoms, they soon decided that my skin condition was likely incurable, as I had responded to nothing they had tried and they couldn’t find a specific cause for why this started happening to me.
“My allergic reactions feel like an intense itching, burning sensation, which can’t be soothed by anything.”
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Her condition has only gotten worse over the years and she claims her reactions now last up to three hours. Understandably, this has had made simple, everyday tasks much more difficult.
“They can last up to 3 hours after the initial contact with water, which makes bathing and caring for myself, in general, an ongoing challenge,” she explained. “Because I so frequently have allergic reactions and am left in such excruciating pain. If I itch my skin, it doesn’t give me any relief, to moisturise it doesn’t help and antihistamines, painkillers and all of the treatments my doctors at St Thomas’ Hospital have tried didn’t have any impact on my symptoms either.”
Currently, Selway is attempting to fundraise £250,000 through GoFundMe so that she can invest in an expensive treatment plan over in Germany.
The influencer added: “I could use all of the help I can to raise awareness of this so I can go and undergo care and treatment by the University of Munster In Germany as a privately funded patient.
“This is my only option right now, as I have exhausted the treatments available to me on the NHS by either reacting badly to them or them just making my symptoms worse entirely.”
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