Teenager Ashleigh Morris can’t go swimming, soak in a hot bath or enjoy a shower after a stressful day’s work – she’s allergic to water. Even sweating brings the 19-year-old out in a painful rash. Ashleigh, from Melbourne, Australia, is allergic to water of any temperature, a condition she’s lived with since she was 14. She suffers from an extremely rare skin disorder called Aquagenic Urticaria – so unusual that only a handful of cases are documented worldwide. When Ashleigh gets wet her body explodes in sore, itchy red lumps that take about two hours to ease. She has to wash. But showering is a painful experience and she can only do it for a minute at a time. These brief showers are the only contact Ashleigh has with water. She developed the condition five years ago after an acute case of tonsillitis. She was prescribed a heavy dose of penicillin that rid her of the tonsillitis but left her with another problem. “I suddenly started getting a rash after I showered or swam,” says Ashleigh who used to swim regularly and spend a lot of time at the beach. “I tried to ignore it but it got progressively worse so I went to see a dermatologist.” Ashleigh’s dermatologist, Professor Rodney Sinclair, told her the penicillin had altered the histamine levels in her body and caused the Aquagenic Urticaria to occur.
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