Wretched hives of scum and villainy

I have hives. Wait, no, that's not right. I don't just "have hives." I have all the hives. Every hive, that ever hove, in all the world, I have somewhere on my body right now.

Sunday morning I woke up with a scattering of them on my thighs. They were kind of itchy but not too bad, so I just kind of forgot about them. But around the time we were cooking dinner, they just started to spread everywhere. At bedtime Jared gave me an antihistimine and I slathered myself in anti-itch lotion, which helped me fall asleep. In the morning on Monday I was hive-free, and thought that was the end of it. But by Tuesday afternoon they exploded all over me again, and they persist now even on Wednesday morning. They itch like crazy, and it's really tough to not just tear all my skin off trying to scratch.

I'm not the kind of person who often gets hives, especially not covering the entirety of my body, so I'm a wee bit concerned that something is off here. I stopped by the drugstore on my way to work this morning to buy more antihistimine and took one just now, so hopefully that will eventually put an end to it. If this keeps up, people tell me I should see a doctor. Well, I've been meaning to anyway, if not for this reason, so I guess that's something pushing me to get it done.

I am trying to trace the source, though most cases of hives are idiopathic so I probably don't have much of a shot. I recently used different laundry detergent (people moving out of their dorms donated various kinds to Elsinore), but I've done several loads already before now with no ill effects. I switched to a new shampoo, but again I'd used it a few times by the point of the first outbreak, and I certainly haven't used it between the first and the second one. The only other possibility I can think of is the acorn squash we made for Sunday dinner. Though I didn't handle the squash much during the preparation, I did a little, and it was around cooking time when I first noticed the hives getting bad. They really exploded during the meal when I was actually eating it. And then I was fine on Monday when I didn't have any of it, but when I finished off the leftovers yesterday they resurged with a vengeance.

So maybe that's it. That still doesn't explain the scattering of hives I woke up with Sunday morning, way before I'd had anything to do with the squash, and I've had acorn squash before with no allergic reaction, so I don't know. I just want to know what the hell to avoid, because I look like a tomato patch over here. A tomato patch being eating alive by stinging insects. :-P