What are hives?

Hives or urticaria, as in medical terms, is an allergic skin response to some allergen, whether harmful or not. They are characterized by the sudden appearance of raised, red and itchy lesions in some part of the trunk of the body, back, arms or legs. Sometimes eyes or genitals which are the softer parts are affected. The size of hives varies from person to person and each time in the same person. The hives may disappear from their first site and reappear in another. The cause of hives in one individual need not cause hives in another.

What causes hives?

Allergic and non allergic causes have been identified.

Foods that are normally consumed may turn out to be causative allergens. To name a few, some nuts, berries, tomato, milk, eggs, fish, prawns, wheat products and cereals do cause a prone person to break out into hives. Food additives or preservatives are also known to do this. House dust, cockroach droppings and animal dander affect some individuals. Insect bites, even those of mosquitoes, and synthetic cosmetic products may give rise to hives.

Causes for non-allergic hives including physical factors like exposure to extremes of temperature, tight belts or bands or clothes reflect the ease with which the condition can occur. Stress and exercise are other non-allergic causes. Drug induced hives due to penicillin or aspirin or any other medicine tends to be more serious in outcome. Fever and viral infections are accompanied by rashes which mimic hives. Emotional reasons, idiopathic and autoimmune causes do contribute to hives occasionally. Genetic inheritance can make a person prone to developing hives.

Types of Hives

Based on how intense the body response is, there can be acute and chronic varieties and sometimes an acute type going onto chronic. The acute variety appears suddenly, obviously upsetting the individual but it disappears as suddenly as within two weeks. The chronic one lasts even for years sometimes.

Angioedema is a more serious form of hives. Oedema will be accompanying the itchy lesions .Dermatographia is another serious presentation characterized by linear lesions caused by mere scratching. This is the body response to some physical factors. In both angioedema and dermatographia, medical intervention must be sought .

The immune system in our body protects us from harmful intruders like disease organisms. In its enthusiasm to defend us, it may at times overshoot its duty, thereby putting up a protest to even presumably harmless substances which they do not recognize as ‘friends’. This body response is exhibited as hives. Here antibodies to the ‘foreigner’ are produced. These hang onto the granules of the mast cells of the skin. The mast cells are then provoked into releasing histamine-like chemicals which produce the reddish and rounded hives by permitting leakage of plasma into the skin.

Essential ‘ingredient’ while adopting the Home Remedies for Hives

The allergic cause for the body reaction, if any, must be analyzed by the suffering person himself. With two or three episodes, one is usually able to detect the causative factor and avoid it in future.

Effective Home remedies for the Hives

Cold compresses, calamine lotion, milk of magnesia or various pastes (e.g. Oatmeal, cornstarch and water) may be applied directly to overcome the itch and are effective home remedies for hives.

Ice cold showers do help to relieve the lesions.

Aloe Vera gel, Vitamin E oil, easily available baby oil or chickweed ointment which may be rubbed onto the hives twice a day till the itching stops and hives disappear are very effective home remedy for hives.

One of the effective hives home remedies is tea made with powdered stinging nettles to which honey or lemon is added for flavor is a good remedy.

Stress may be handled by taking a cup of herbal tea. This is one of the useful hives cure.

Bathing with a few cups of oatmeal, finely ground, with two cups of chamomile and a cup nearly full of baking soda is a refreshing variety of natural remedy for hives.

Applying ice cubes directly onto the lesions is an acceptable hives treatment which really soothes.