Is there a doctor in the house?

I guess this is an attempt to prove that more can be done in the blogosphere than just inflaming religious tensions throughout the world. Or maybe I'm just a busybody. Or maybe it's because I don't want to see one of my favorite bloggers be sick, or worse.

Lauren over at Please Make Rice, I Love You has hives and rashes. Bad.

/2006/02/mom-dont-panic.html

Don't think that's bad? Read this:

/2006/01/hoping-to-meet-george-clooney.html

She's had them since around January 1st, and has been treating them with varying levels of success. Her doctor is taking the approach of treating the symptoms rather than worrying about the cause, which many of us find strange and unsatisfying (or just plain dumb.)

/2006/02/yippee.html
/2006/01/does-anyone-want-to-trade-bodies.html
/2006/01/hi-hives.html
/2006/01/usually-low-maintenance.html
/2006/01/you-know-what-i-heard.html
/2006/01/hives-are-gone.html
/2006/01/itchy-and-scratchy.html
/2006/01/candycanes.html
/2006/01/drowsy.html

This is apparently the first mention of them, which would put the actual start date as Monday, January 9, 2006.
/2006/01/three-stooge-horses.html

(Each of these should open a single archived entry. Be careful about diving into her whole-month archives unless you have a high-speed connection and a lot of RAM. I crashed my computer badly last night trying to do just that. Twice. I finally settled on just doing a blog search on her site.)

Speculations are mostly focusing on this being an allergic reaction. But to what? Suggestions have ranged from cotton to tap water, soda to shampoo, and everything in between. Everything is suspect, even her boyfriend. She's tried eliminating various things with no success. The timing suggests that it may be something new that's been introduced into her environment, possibly since Christmas.

I started digging into information about various skin conditions and learned that some of them are autoimmune diseases, where the body's immune system begins to attack healthy tissue. I'm not qualified to make that sort of diagnosis, especially not over the Internet. But I'm hoping it's something her doctor at least has in the back of his mind.

I dug a little further because I remembered that this was not Lauren's first bout with hives. I found two incidents in August of last year - one from a bee sting and one from exposure to a plant. Can either of these be related to her current condition?

/2005/08/ive-got-itch.html
/2005/08/all-moved-in.html

If there's anybody out there who can give Lauren some advice, please go to her site and do so. Thanks!