My response will probably not help you, but I have the same problem with hives, but probably not to the degree you have it. They seem to develop on the softer parts of my body and last a few days. I went to the dermatologist and she gave me a list of foods to avoid and some ointment. I really doubt this is related to food, but I have found good old-fashioned Calamine Lotion helps sooth the hives, and I even think it makes them go away quicker.

I hope you be will able to discover the cause of your hives. But if you have not suddenly added anything new to your diet or changed anything you come in contact with (new laundry detergent, etc.) there is the possibility that there is no active "trigger." My sister in law has had outbreaks of hives/welts following her second pregnancy, and they have never discovered a cause. Her doctor feels her autoimmune system is just programming her body to over produce histamine, which results in the itchy swellings. He has told her that if it is hormonal related, perhaps it will disappear when she goes through menaopause, a good 10 years away! So she has been taking a perscription antihistamine for 9 years now to keep them in check. Good luck, I hope yours will be short lived, but if no cause is found you can seek treatment and do fine.

Hives are not helped by any external application...
One thing to consider....do you have any chronic sinus infection, post nasal drip thing going on? I will get an outbreak of hives if I get something like that hanging on for a couple of weeks.
Also you can become allergic to something that never bothered you for years. It happened to me with penicillin.
Write down everything you eat for a while and see if you can draw some conclusions.
Linda C

This probably won't help you at all except to know that you aren't alone. I had the exact same thing as you and it lasted over a year. One day my eye would swell up and would probably last 3 or 4 hours or maybe 10 or 12 hours. The next day, it would be my upper lip. Then I'd get whelps all around my waist, sometimes below my waist, then all over my arms, around my neck. I consistently saw an allergist and they tried everything and never could find out why. Nothing about it was consistent. They ruled out food allergies, I hadn't changed detergents, no new medications. They treated it with Benadryl and several other allergy medications, but since it didn't occur regularly, it was hard to treat. I used an allergy pill that specifically said it worked on hives (most of them say "itchy, watery eyes" or due to allergens caused by smoke, pollen, etc.) But this pill did help the hives. I even went to New York (my first trip there) and it followed me. My eye swole up for two days. So it didn't have to do with the Texas air. And I could always feel it coming on - a tingling sensation whenever it was starting to swell - and I couldn't stop it. They thought it might be shingles.

Anyway, bottom line - the allergist wanted me to go to a special diagnostic clinic and take a battery of tests. I never made the appointment and voila! it all disappeared. I haven't had a reoccurrence for two years. So if you can wait it out...it will probably go away as mysteriously as it came.

There's a medical condition, but I can't remember the name of it, where hives are related to stress and anxiety, but from your description of the areas affected, it sounds more like a contact allergy. Maybe you could try not using any fabric softener sheets, and try a laundry detergent that does not have perfumes, dyes, or enzymes.

This is fairly unrelated to your question, but when my son was a little tot, he would break out in hives if we moved to a new house. I think the change stressed him out, even at that young age, and that was how his body responded to the stress.
Mrs H

My husband went through almost 3 years of these 'hives'. Called angioneurotic edema when a reason such as allegy isn't found. There was never more than a few days between 'attacks'. He had large swellings on every part of his body. (yes, that too) Sometmes it would be just a finger or an eye lid. Other times it would be in a half dozen or more places at once. More often than not he would have it around his waist at the belt line. Heat, cold and pressure seemed to set it off. The worst was when the condition went 'inside' and he would have what semed like severe indigestion and pain in the diaphragm/esopagus. About 3 years into this, he bagan having a different chest pain. It turned out to be angina and a short time later he had quadruple heart bypass surgery. Two days after the surgery, he had his last attack of these hives. It has been 23 years now and he has not had another hive. Were the hives and heart condition connected? I don't think so...but who knows.

The propensity to angioneurotic edema, I have read, runs in families. Our daughter in her teens, had a round of it that ran for about a year. She is diabetic, and when she was changed from beef insulin to pork insulin the breakouts stopped. She is 46 now and has had no more problems. Daughter #2 has, over the last 10 years, had maybe 6 or 7 short episodes of it. And 3 of my husbands 6 siblings have had short episodes with it.

The only thing that helped anyone was time. They just have to run their course it seems. Husband and daughter were put on a couple different medications, including benedryl, that did not help. Maybe now there is something that will. Do a web search for angioneurotic edema. There is a lot to learn. Much more now than when we were looking for answers for my husband and daughter.

My DH had it years ago & we changed bath soap. The Dial he'd always used was it.

Suzi

Have you found that each episode becomes more intense? And has it ever affected your breathing?

I have heard that hypothyroidism can produce hives (it's an autoimmune disorder). You would need lab work and an antibody test. An allergist should be able to order the appropriate tests.

i have that problem back in 2000, the doctor was give me some hydroxyzine 10 mil pills. She even give me a copy pages of medical doctor manual related to hives problems. Hive is nature cause by immune system the medicine would help ease the problem, it may go away and come back at any time. i took the medication for two week and it gone for 5 yrs now, hope this help Nike