Yes. I've had chronic urticaria (hives) since my son was 9 months old. He's now 9 *years* old. It sucks. They have yet to find a diagnosis other than guessing that it's auto-immune. My blood tests come out weird (ana's, etc) but not weird enough to be rheumatoid arthritis or lupus.
All I can say is that until or if they find a definite cause, you're going to have to go through a series of drugs, most of them are antihistamines, until you find one that works (obviously guided by your doctor-I'd suggest going to either an allergist or a dermatologist, they're better trained to deal with urticaria than a general practitioner or family doctor.) You'll most likely have to try prednisone for awhile, but you probably will find that it sucks to be on prednisone, so you'll want to find something with fewer side-effects. In the end, Zyrtec is what controls my hives (well, mostly controls them.)
Ok, here are some of the drugs my allergist tried me on before the Zyrtec:
Prednisone-steroid -makes you hungry all the time and feel kind of bad, but can derail bad hives for awhile
Fexofenadine (Allegra)-antihistamine
Hydroxyzine (Atarax)-antihistamine -makes a good sleeping pill, it is one of the first (or maybe is THE first) antihistamine that they came up with for allergy sufferers, really knocks you out so you have to take it at night
Diphenhydramine (Benadryl)-antihistamine -often does absolutely nothing for hives
Cimetidine (Tagamet)-"histamine receptor antaganist" -commonly used for ulcers or stomach acid problems
PM me if you want to talk.
Serena
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