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Suggest Treatment For Hives Which Re-occur Under Cold Conditions
Question: Hi, I had a bad case of the hives on Friday. I was out in the cold, when it started. When I went inside, they went away. Saturday I got up and was fine. I then started working in the cold and I got the hives back and they were very itchy. I called my doctor and they prescribed Prednisone. So I started on it yesterday. When I got home and warmed up they went away and the itching stopped, so I thought the Prednisone was working and I was already getting better. Sunday Am I got up and was fine again. When I started to work out in the cold. The hives and itching came back again. Do you have any clue what it might be. Thanks,
Brief Answer:
Urticaria: Various suggestions and guidance.
Detailed Answer:
Hello,
Welcome and thanks for posing your query to the forum. I can understand your concern for the hives since last week.
After analyzing the complete query I can get that you have the condition which is medically known as Urticaria.
Before I precede further let you understand the problem. To tell you medically - Our blood contains multiple type cells including red blood cells and white blood cells. Specifically these white blood cells provide immunity to our body which is of further multiple types.
Whenever anything in body is not suitable or offending to body then the number of white blood cells increases transiently. Particularly these cells which increase are eosinophils and basophils which are also known as mast cells. These cells contain granules which have a specific chemical known as histamine.
So as soon as any offending factors come in contact there is bursting of the mast cells. There fore this histamine is released and we experience variable degree of itching and the kind of bumps which we can see in your case.
The bumps can remain for a very transient period to upto multiple hours. It can remain for more than 12 hours too depending on the intensity of the offending factor but never more than 24 hours.
There are multiple types of offending factor including our food, environmental factors including temperature variation, heat, humidity, cold, dust and even simple of fragrances in air and multiple of other related things.
In your case as these are present mainly after cold exposure, so the temperature variation is the main factor causing the problem.
For the treatment part - it is quite simple and treated with drugs which inhibits the histamine release also known as Antihistamines. The treatment provided to you is excellent.
Additionally I prefer Loratadine or Des-Loratadine ( Claritin or Alaspan or Lorfast) in my patients as it is very simple medicine without any side effects of sedation.
Benadryl is bit sedating one so I prefer to give in evening or night time.
I hope this information will help you in dealing the condition better. If you have any further queries I will be glad to help you.
With good health wishes,
Dr Sanjay Kanodia
MD - Dermatology
Urticaria: Various suggestions and guidance.
Detailed Answer:
Hello,
Welcome and thanks for posing your query to the forum. I can understand your concern for the hives since last week.
After analyzing the complete query I can get that you have the condition which is medically known as Urticaria.
Before I precede further let you understand the problem. To tell you medically - Our blood contains multiple type cells including red blood cells and white blood cells. Specifically these white blood cells provide immunity to our body which is of further multiple types.
Whenever anything in body is not suitable or offending to body then the number of white blood cells increases transiently. Particularly these cells which increase are eosinophils and basophils which are also known as mast cells. These cells contain granules which have a specific chemical known as histamine.
So as soon as any offending factors come in contact there is bursting of the mast cells. There fore this histamine is released and we experience variable degree of itching and the kind of bumps which we can see in your case.
The bumps can remain for a very transient period to upto multiple hours. It can remain for more than 12 hours too depending on the intensity of the offending factor but never more than 24 hours.
There are multiple types of offending factor including our food, environmental factors including temperature variation, heat, humidity, cold, dust and even simple of fragrances in air and multiple of other related things.
In your case as these are present mainly after cold exposure, so the temperature variation is the main factor causing the problem.
For the treatment part - it is quite simple and treated with drugs which inhibits the histamine release also known as Antihistamines. The treatment provided to you is excellent.
Additionally I prefer Loratadine or Des-Loratadine ( Claritin or Alaspan or Lorfast) in my patients as it is very simple medicine without any side effects of sedation.
Benadryl is bit sedating one so I prefer to give in evening or night time.
I hope this information will help you in dealing the condition better. If you have any further queries I will be glad to help you.
With good health wishes,
Dr Sanjay Kanodia
MD - Dermatology
Note: Hope the answers resolves your concerns, however for further guidance of skin related queries consult our Dermatologist.Click here to book a consultation
Above answer was peer-reviewed by :
Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
Answered by
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