Managing hives isn’t easy, but there are lots sites on the Internet that will help you in managing urticaria. They mainly deal with the correct evaluation of patterns and causes where possible, and avoiding potential ‘triggers’ that cause reactions in the skin. Good diet practices should also be adhered to because the overall health of the body will hinder the condition from continuing.

One site to visit when learning about managing urticaria is Infoallergy.com. This site suggests identifying aggravating factors that could make the urticaria worse. Some of these include avoiding situations like taking aspirin, overheating, wearing tight clothing, and stress. If patients do not respond well to antihistamines, they should talk to their doctor about taking a higher dose or about any other medications that may be available.

Mayoclinic.com has excellent advice on managing urticaria, as well as many other conditions. They suggest do a little work before seeing your doctor, such as writing down what your experiencing and personal information about stress and life changes. Also, you should write down a list of all the medications, vitamins, and supplements that you are taking as well as a list of questions to ask your doctor.

This site also suggests ways to relieve your symptoms. These include wearing light, loose fitting clothing and other ways to avoid irritating the affected area. The recommends taking over-the-counter anti-histamines until you can get in to see your doctor, and cooling the affected area with a shower, fan, cool cloth or soothing lotion.

Home Treatment

There are lots of things that you can do to treat and sooth your symptoms at home. Many people turn to home remedies for managing urticaria because anti-histamines are simply not enough, or they make people too drowsy to cope. Also, many home remedies offer long term solutions that conventional medicines can’t. Yet, any type of remedy should always be discussed with your physician beforehand.

Home-remedies-for-you.com suggests taking cool baths and showers, applying vitamin E oil to the affected area. Adding corn starch and baking soda to luke-warm water is helpful in managing urticaria, and so applying a mixture of oatmeal and hot water. Herbal teas such as chamomile and peppermint teas are suggested by the site for managing hives, and so are foods rich in zinc and vitamins C and E.

Ayurvediccure.com offers some of the same advice, however they add much more. They suggest nettle tea with honey or lemon flavor, as nettles are considered to be able to heal hives. Applying Aloe Vera to the affected area is said to be a trusted home remedy to help with managing hives. In addition, the herb is said to have healing properties.

Today’s post has four simple tips for managing urticaria, no matter if it is autoimmune urticaria, physical urticaria or any other type.

1: Sort out the causes and triggers, and avoid them as much as you can. For example if you are suffering from heat induced urticaria, avoid hot temperature.
2: Avoid offending stimuli, allergens or foods that can cause allergies like  eggs, nuts, wheat, dairy products etc. Remember, different people can be allergic to different foods. Food elimination technique can be helpful i.e. avoiding one type of food at one time and noting the results and then repeating with other types. This can be time consuming though!
3: Do not rub or unnecessarily touch the rashes, this can cause the rashes to blister and increase itching.
4: Consult a qualified doctor for timely diagnosis and treatment and choose medicines which do not have side effects e.g. herbal products.

You can read about urticaria and related conditions in my post next week.