The mother of a toddler who was diagnosed with a devastating allergy to water told People magazine that her daughter's condition is "getting worse" and she fears the "unknowns" in their family's future.
Brittany Angerman, of Hastings, Minnesota, said her 21-month-old daughter Ivy was diagnosed with aquagenic urticaria in October 2017, People reported earlier this month.
Aquagenic urticaria is a rare condition in which hives develop on the skin after coming in contact with water, regardless of temperature, according to the National Institutes of Health's Genetic and Rare Diseases Information Center.
When she was about a year old, Ivy started to have allergic reactions after bath time, Angerman wrote on a GoFundMe page. They tried eliminating shampoos and soaps, even bathing her at hotels and relatives' homes, but Ivy "would still break out in the worst blistery rashes," she said.
Testing revealed that Ivy suffered from the rare and painful condition - suffering from hives caused even by her own tears or sweat, Angerman said.
Ivy takes antihistamines - the only treatment available - to combat the reaction, though she's already starting to become immune to them, her family told People.
"She used to love bath time and wanted to play in the snow," Angerman told People. "But now she hides and doesn’t want to go into the bathroom or outside."
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Now, the Angermans are searching for a new home to help limit the severity of Ivy's condition: one with air conditioning and a purified well water system.
As of Monday, the GoFundMe page had raised just under $41,000 of a $50,000 goal to pay for a new home as well as their medical bills and research on the condition.
But Angerman said that one of the family's biggest worries isn't over what's happening now, but rather, how Ivy's condition might change in the future.
"I wonder if one day her throat will start to swell up when she drinks," Angerman told People in February. "We don’t know if she’ll be able to go to day care or what job she’ll be able to have in the future."
"There are so many unknowns,” she added. “It cause[s] a lot of stress, but we get through it because we have to focus on Ivy.”
