Allergist Pooja Patel, MD: Chronic hives are treated a little bit differently than acute hives. So, acute hives, you’re looking for the cause of it, so whether it’s food allergen, drug allergen, or a viral illness that has triggered hives that are just lasting for a few days, you treat them with antihistamine. You take the allergen away, your hives go away. Essentially what happens with acute hives is you get exposed to the allergen, you have hives, you take the allergen away. So unless you continue to get exposed to it, you don’t keep having these hives.
With chronic urticaria or chronic spontaneous urticaria, what’s happening, it’s an internal system change or an immune system response to your internal system. So you want to treat it with higher doses of antihistamines, anti-leukotrienes. Sometimes we quadruple the dose of antihistamines to treat this, and if needed, there are other treatments to be considered, such as biological treatments and things like that, as well.
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Resource Type: Video | Allergy, Allergy Treatment, Skin Allergies, Skin Symptoms (Itching, Hives, Etc)
