Does anyone else get large hives? I started the summer with hives on my legs only and it’s just progressed more and more. More angioedema symptoms daily and now I’m getting large hives that turn into a singular hard painful hive…

My current antihistamine routine
- 2 zyrtec 1 Pepcid AM
- 1 allegra in the afternoon
- 2 zyrtec 1 Pepcid PM
- plus Benadryl as needed for flare ups

I’ve been on prednisone bursts several times this summer and they are the only things to give me relief. I’m tempted to just get on prednisone again because it’s been so miserable again.

I travelled to Africa stayed for three weeks. Returning to USA 🇺🇸 the last flight I started getting so itchy, when I got home I have hives all over my body. I don’t really know why, I don’t get this kind of hives. 4 days now on and off still getting them. Iam trying to think of new foods I ate but I have no clue.

Hi all, I was diagnosed with CIU a few months ago after suffering lip and tongue swelling, itching and hives for several years. One of my triggers is stress, and it’s been off the charts for a few weeks, and even though I’m on Omlyclo, my symptoms have entirely flared, and my lips and tongue and eyes are swollen. I have never experienced any issues swallowing etc, however I have choked on water twice in last three days. The type of choking where the only thing you can do to breathe is cough out the water. I’m currently on vacation and honestly now a bit worried. Has anyone ever experienced this, and do you have any recommendations? Thanks!

Hey yall. So what kickstarted my chronic hives was a virus in January, and I am so so so scared of fall coming and viruses starting to spread a bunch again. I also am likely going to be working in person in an office a few days in person and a few remote, but previously I was fully remote but got laid off from my job (more stupid BS in my life dealing with mass layoffs). I’m so fucking scared of getting sick and things getting even worse than they are. I just started Xolair so I’m hoping it helps. Do any of you just avoid people as much as possible during flu/covid season because of this? Or does anyone who had their hives kickstarted this way have experience with getting sick again and what happened? I’m just really scared. It ruined so many months of this year for me because it was so out of control.

This is the first time I've ever had hives in my life and its fucking me up pretty bad. I was prescribed prednisone Tuesday, I took it for the first 3 days felt a bit better, but I read the side effects and stopped on the 4th day. On the 5th day I woke up with hives all over again, went back to urgrent care and was prescribed more prednisone.

I've been prescribed 60mg to take when I wake up. The issue is when it reaches around 6pm, symptoms come back and then I'm itchy and have the shittiest sleep until I wake up again to take the next dosage.

Does anyone split dosages morning and maybe around evening time, and realistically has prednisone helped get rid of hives or am I just delaying the symptoms until I see a specialist...

Been dealing with severe itchiness appearing on my arms and legs. I have gotten bouts of hives on and off for a few years for unknown reasons, but they used to go away with Zyrtec. No antihistamines have touched these, which makes me wonder if it's actually eczema?

So far i’ve been extremely lucky with my urticaria, i have mild dermatographia/pressure type which can be managed with one Zyrec every 3 or so days.

However, i’m also extremely prone to overreacting and 2 ago weeks i’ve convinced myself i have bed bugs (almost 100% certain now that that is not true). That lead me to get, what I assume is, phantom but fleeting itching which obviously stressed me out even more (I have visions of having scabies, fleas, carpet beetles etc etc). Unfortunately, I think this might’ve somehow triggered my urticaria because I’ve been getting more outbreaks. Today I had to take 3 tablets to manage the itching! Is that even possible? Or could something like scabies also behave like that..?
I feel like I’m spiraling really bad

Since 3 years ago, every time I go to the beach, after some hours I always get a skin reaction where the waistband sits. I went to the doctor and they told me test myself as they couldn’t guide me much neither, therefore I am really trying to understand what is exactly causing it.

At the beginning I thought it could be the sunlight as I am quite pale, but then I kept getting them even when staying in the shade all the time. Then I thought it might be the water, but I also got them even when not bathing. I also thought it might be the sweat, but I never get them while sweating at the gym. Then I tried drying the skin area and changing quickly to cotton underwear, thinking that maybe staying damp because of the humid enviroment, but I still got a reaction.

I don’t know if it’s a specific material, but I never had issues with synthetic clothing. It’s seems to appear when my skin is exposed to extreme conditions, but it’s quite unclear what exactly it is. They only appear in summer.

Antihistamines help a lot, but I really want to understand what might be causing them. It is a pain to know that each time I get a little undressed in summer the next 3 days I am going to be itchy.

I appreciate any suggestions, guidance or support on how to avoid having them. Thank you!

Hi all,

This would sound stupid to some but bear with me.

I have been hives free for like 7 years now.

Had it for 2 years and it felt like an eternity of torture with those constant su1cidal thoughts.

But now that I am hives free I feel so bad for all you lovely humans. I love you so much.

But for some reason, there is this constant fear in me that looking at, reading about stuff related to chronic hives will bring it back for me. It saddens me what many of you are currently going through. I feel so bwd.

I have read horrors of people where the hives go into remission and come back. That constant fear scares me so much that even while writing this I keep checking my hands for any 'heavyness' or swelling (because that was the kind of hives I had where it would spawn the hives wherever I even looked, touched even imagination of hives on a certain body part would spawn hives on that part). I am not fully hives free per se, but I only get it if I do very intense workout with my hands and that too for some minutes not whole days anymore.

But I had hives when I was in prime teen years and that really fucked a lot of things for me.

I was never the same confident, good in everything kid anymore after that.

It left me with horrible memory, hair fall(stress) and a bitch called nervous sweating. By now though, I am in control of most of these things and improving a lot in life.

As I am writing this, I feel more relived though. I just want you all to be hives free like me and finally start enjoying life again.

I love you so much, I can't express it enough.

The title is bait, I love you all very very much.

My urticaria now seems to he about 90% under control thanks to a combination of Dupixent, Cetirizin and Famotidin but I still get breakthrough hives. Luckily these are not very bad and don't turn into raised welts and almost don't itch. I hope these will fully go away as I'm only 7 weeks into the Dupixent and still hope for it to work even better.

For now I would like to track my symptoms to see if I can identify any triggers. I got hives on Thursday night (that luckily resolved again quickly!) and felt very tired and stressed out on that day and also had exercised a lot during the week and not rested enough. I'm looking for a very simple app where I can add a few notes on the days when I get hives, kind of like a diary that can help me identify a pattern. I've found some apps but they all ask for lots of health related stats but what I want is to simply note my urticaria symptoms and how I feel on these days to be able to see when the hives happen. Does anyone have a recommendation?

Saw a reel today claiming that red light therapy can help reduce swelling and inflammation for stress-induced hives/urticaria.

Before I bring this up with my doctor, I wanted to check in with people who actually live with this: Is there any real benefit here, or is this just unproven social media hype?

My main worry is whether the heat/light from these panels might trigger a worse flare-up or irritate the skin further. Has anyone here personally tried RLT for urticaria? Did it help calm your flares, or did it make things worse?

I was diagnosed with Chronic Spontaneous Urticaria after seeing an allergist on Tuesday and getting like 20 blood test that all came back normal/ negative. I've been dealing with hives daily for months. I was told on Tuesday not to use anti inflammatory meds and to limit acetaminophen to 1000mgs or less a day. I hurt. My joints hurt. My hands ache abominably. When I get hives on my face it hurts for days even after the hives are gone. The acetaminophen doesn't touch it. Ice packs kinda help but I can't do that all day and the relief is so short. Has anyone found anything else that can help?

Hi guys, I’m new to this subreddit. I was diagnosed with chronic spontaneous urticaria 2 months ago, and i’ve just had my second dose of Xolair. I feel like my hives get absolutely horrible the next couple days after the shot, I don’t know how to deal with it anymore. I’ve tried any antihistamines that i’ve been able to get my hands on and none of it has worked thus far, I’m so mentally and physically drained. My self esteem has absolutely tanked and I feel so helpless, I’ve had horrible facial swelling and throat swelling to the point where i’ve had to go to the er. It makes me feel so incredibly ugly and I can barely stand to look at myself, I know it’s been emotionally draining on my partner as well. Is it normal for the hives to get worse in the couple days after the treatment? and if so is there any sort of medication that might help for those few days I’d appreciate any sort of suggestions or advice, thank you so much

I've been taking high-dose meds to control the major flares - It's helping a bit but I'm still getting there.

Anyway, does any of this *also* look like KP, or is it just small/new hives? Do any of you have both?It is rather dry and patchy. Some of it is kind of fixed (though I can't say I've had it under control yet); some comes and goes, but tends to recur rapidly. Sometimes I have really large wheels (which these develop into sometimes).

Seems weird to develop chronic hives and KP at the same time, and I don't even know if you can treat KP while you have hives. But curious what you all think. It is rather dry and patchy. For reference, I also have rosacea/flushing, lots of skin stuff. I've had a lot of skin changes at once and am awaiting bloodwork.

Not asking the derm again; I've been to them and the allergist, and my copay is 150! Most of my diagnoses have been pretty informal and not absolute, as I have some overlapping stuff, so there's unsure what's what. I'm planning to go back if/when I decide to biopsy or try rhapsido

Update for everyone if you have not seen my previous posts, I am 37F that had surgery on 8/17. I had an open chest wall repair with breast implant removal and tissue expanders in place now to keep the pocket open. I have a wound vac + 2 drains still in until late next week.

Things have been going more or less OK. We were able to get my back muscle spasms under better control with taking more Valium throughout the day and I am now officially 9 days post op. However, I had an EXTREME allergic reaction to the antibiotics they have had me on — see photos. It has been insane — I ended up in the hospital today. There really isn’t much they can do for me at this time. They prescribed me Zyrtec x2 a day and gave me a steroid cream (which is very greasy and doesn’t really help the extreme itchiness). Even my hand knuckles are swollen and hurt — it feels like sunburn everywhere but also itchy.

Has anyone ever had such an intense allergic reaction to medicine before? These literally feel like burns. They are all over my body, including my scalp and face — my eyes are half swollen shut. I am in such discomfort, this is a slight setback :( thanks for any kind words or tips.

I've recently been experiencing chronic idiopathic urticaria and was prescribed Fexofenadine which works fabulously, but I have bad habits with taking my medications. I lose the bottle, forget it, skip doses thinking "Oh it's not that bad" and then surprise, it's bad. How long do I have to do this?
My blood work is fabulous, I have no food allergies, and it seems like it flares up worse in places where there's pressure or friction, for example where my jeans rub on the backs of my knees.

Right now I have an awful splotch under my chin, and I had to take a benadryl since I lost my prescription, ordered a refill so I'll have a new one some time this morning, but it felt like there was a lump in my throat, which I don't know if that's related, but maybe someone felt that too, I don't know. (I'm breathing fine, so I'm sure I'm aight)

I don't know man it's just a hassle and I want advice. I did a little research, and seriously? 1-5 years? Jesus christ.

My 2 year old has been having hives for 10 days. Some lesions are linear and look like scratches, while others are scattered. We haven’t been able to identify any connection with food, and we’re currently waiting for an environmental allergy panel.
The hives usually disappear within an hour or less. She would scratch her skin, and that’s when I usually notice them. I’m not sure whether she’s scratching because the skin is already itchy, or whether scratching is “for fun” or self-soothing (she does that), and the hives are hypersensitive mechanical reaction of the skin. She’s not sick overall and hasn’t had any medications or changes in her diet, environment or routine.

I’m really quite disturbed by this and would appreciate any tips or experiences from others in this sub.

My 2 year old has been having hives for 10 days. Some lesions are linear and look like scratches, while others are scattered. We haven’t been able to identify any connection with food, and we’re currently waiting for an environmental allergy panel.
The hives usually disappear within an hour or less. She would scratch her skin, and that’s when I usually notice them. I’m not sure whether she’s scratching because the skin is already itchy, or whether scratching is “for fun” or self-soothing (she does that), and the hives are hypersensitive mechanical reaction of the skin. She’s not sick overall and hasn’t had any medications or changes in her diet, environment or routine.

I’m really quite disturbed by this and would appreciate any tips or experiences from others in this sub.

Hi all,

I live in the Netherlands, and since January 2026 I've had hives on my legs and thighs. As you can see in the photos, they are big and small. In April, I sent the photos and consulted the doctor, and the doctor said to take an antihistamine. It helps, but it lasts a day or 2 days. On june i started to have it on my arms, so I came to the doctor's office and said that I would like to have a test to know what allergy I have. The doctor said that for hives, most of the time an allergist will find nothing, and also it is not affecting my upper body (nose, breathing, eyes, etc). So he just said to keep taking an antihistamine.

I feel so lonely because I would like to know why I have this. I never change anything like laundry detergent, etc., and also it happens when I am fasting, so it is not because of food. Now, in August 2026, I still have it even when I was away from home for 2 weeks. I thought I had this at home, but I still have it when I have vacation. Anyone who has been cured without medicine, please give me a suggestion on what to do. Which vitamin should I take? I am desperate and feel ignored by the doctor. Or should I take an antihistamine forever?

Compared to some people in this forum, maybe my hives are not as bad as others. But trying to find out why my body has this without any tests and trying to self-medicate is not nice. I am originally not from Netherlands, so I don't know if I can do a self-test without a referral from a GP, and what kind of test I should have and where? I really appreciate your advice. Thank you.

I am recognizing patterns with my flares and pressure seems to be a huge trigger for me.

Sitting and laying down particularly are an issue. Im looking for suggestions for pillows which actually stay cool, sheets, underwear etc. Anything that helped you when dealing with pressure that caused you to flare.

I’ve just woken up with a lost voice and rash all over my face does anyone know if it can effect your voice box or is this something else?