Hives -causes, Symptoms, Treatment

What is Hives
Hives are red and sometimes itchy bumps on your skin. An allergic reaction to a drug or food usually causes them. Allergic reactions cause your body to release chemicals that can make your skin swell up in hives. People who have other allergies are more likely to get hives than other people. Other causes include infections and stress.

Hives usually cause itching, but may also burn or sting. They can appear anywhere on the body, including the face, lips, tongue, throat, or ears. Hives vary in size (from a pencil eraser to a dinner plate), and may join together to form larger areas known as plaques. They can last for hours, or up to one day before fading.

Causes of Hives
Ingestion or Inhalation
When the source of hives can be determined, most cases are caused by ingestion of a substance. Drugs can suddenly cause hives even if the person has been taking them for years. Many foods or food additives can also cause hives suddenly, even in small amounts.
Dermatographism. The name of this condition literally means "write on the skin." When pressure is applied to the skin or the skin is scratched, raised lines appear on those areas due to histamine-based angioedema that leads to swelling beneath the skin.
The cause of chronic urticaria is often more difficult to identify. Most cases are called chronic idiopathic urticaria, which means they're caused by the body's unexplainable development of antibodies to itself (auto-antibodies).

Symptoms of Hives
Hives usually begin with itching. Then wheals quickly develop. The wheals usually remain small (less than ½ inch across). Wheals that are larger (up to 4 inches across) may look like rings of redness with a pale center. Typically, crops of hives come and go.

varied in size, with some being smaller than your child's finger tip and other's larger than a half-dollar size. Also, hives can often merge or join to form even larger hives that, for example, can cover half of your child's abdomen.

People with allergy symptoms often have asthma. Sometimes a cough is the first symptom of asthma, but a cough can be a symtpom of other things also. Wheezing, especially at night or after exercise, is common with asthma.

Treatment of Hives
Urticarias can be very difficult to treat. There are no guaranteed treatments or means of controlling attacks, and some sub-populations are treatment resistant, with medications spontaneously losing their effectiveness and requiring new medications to control attacks. It can be difficult to determine appropriate medications since some such as loratadine require a day or two to build up to effective levels, and since the condition is intermittent and outbreaks typically clear up without any treatment.

Many antihistamines are available without prescription, such as diphenhydramine (Benadryl), taken in doses of 25 milligrams and chlorpheniramine (Chlor-Trimeton), taken in a dose of 4 milligrams. These can be taken up to three times a day, but because these medications can cause drowsiness, they are often taken at bedtime.The most notorious such test was cytotoxic testing, which was promoted during the early 1980s by storefront clinics, laboratories, nutrition consultants, chiropractors, and medical doctors. Advocates claimed it could determine sensitivity to food, which they blamed for asthma, arthritis, constipation, diarrhea, hypertension, obesity, stomach disorders, and many other conditions

Treatment for Hives
Although useful in treating hives and angioedema, these medications are often ineffective in treating hereditary angioedema. Medications used specifically to treat HAE on a long-term basis include certain androgens, such as danazol (Danocrine), that help regulate levels of blood proteins.