What Are Hives? Symptoms, Causes, Diagnosis, Treatment, and Prevention
If you’ve never experienced a bout of hives, consider yourself lucky. Roughly 20 percent of people do get hives at some point in their lives, making it a very common ailment. (1) Hives can be a source of physical and mental anguish, especially if they appear frequently and continue happening for months or years.
What’s important to know is that hives can affect anyone. While some people may carry a higher risk for hives, you can get them no matter your age or gender. Here’s what you should know about the common condition, including why you get hives, how to deal with them if you do, and how to prevent them from coming again (or in the first place).
Signs and Symptoms of Hives
Hives, formally known in the medical community as urticaria, usually appear as red or skin-colored bumps or welts that have defined edges. They can be as small as a pen tip or as large as a dinner plate, and when you press the center of a hive that’s red, it can turn white, something referred to as blanching. (1) They can appear as one hive or show up as blotches or connected patches. And they show up to help control the body’s allergic response to certain triggers.
Hives can be quite itchy, not to mention irritating. While they bring an obvious physical burden, they can hinder emotional well-being too, often isolating individuals socially and affecting performance at work and school, especially if a person has been struggling with hives for a long time, says Sarina Elmariah, MD, PhD, a board-certified dermatologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
As you may suspect, hives are easily confused with other conditions, but there are a few characteristics that distinguish them. “Although many conditions can look like hives, they often don’t behave like hives,” says Adam Friedman, MD, professor of dermatology at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Washington, D.C.
Namely, how long they last and how much they move can help you determine if a rash or skin condition is hives. Common symptoms of hives are: (2)
Red or skin-colored bumps or welts with clear edges that typically clear up within 24 hours, but may reappear in another spot
Bumps or welts that show up either alone or clumped together, covering a larger area
Itchiness around the bumps or welts
Swelling around the bumps or welts
Sometimes pain or stinging at the site of the bumps or welts
If hives last for six weeks or longer, you may be dealing with chronic hives, which can be a sign that something else is going on. (For more information about chronic hives, see below.)
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