I had a crazy case of hives about 5 years ago. Still have no idea what caused them, but started with an initial total body, head-to-toe breakout. The swelling was so bad that the doctor had me go to his office on Thurs, Fri, and Sat so he could take a look at me, and then gave be his cell phone number so I could call him on Sunday to tell him I was OK. I never did have trouble breathing, but it was a real concern. I was put on Clarinex double doses along with hydroxyzine 20mg at night (verrry sleeeepy).
This lasted from August through January. They left my body from the top down, so left my feet last. Weird. We never found a cause, it wasn’t an allergy. I’ve had some people who are more into holistic medicine say they can be from extreme stress - and the day they happened was indeed an extremely unusual and stressful day - so who knows? Hasn’t happened since.
It seems your daughter suffers from Urticaria. I have suffered from it since i was 12 and at 25 still occassionally have an outbreak.
It is a vexing disease, usually there is no identifiable cause, outbreaks can be years apart and you can have one item which never caused you problems before suddenly cause a reaction one day and then not cause another one again.
My advise is a course of treatment with a good allergy specialist. Eventually she will be able to “feel” the onset (in my case its a small rash behind my left year) and take precautions immidietly. What I do is keep a mild anti-allergy pill with me at all times and take it when necessary, this is probably what she will have to do as well, but please consult with your doctor before taking any step.
I did once after eating some home-made Chinese food. All of the ingredients were foods I’ve eaten before, but for some reason, I ended up with some serious facial swelling. Never happened again. But I’m still careful.
I used to get the “ubangi lips” as they called them back in my day.
Hives are very weird. All my life I go through periods where I get them. I get swollen all over. My eyes swell shut, lips swell, my finger get so “hived up” you can’t hold a pen. I even get them on the bottom of my foot and my butt. It’s hard to sit or stand
I never had anaphylaxis though I’m sure if I was diagnosed today the doctors would say that to cover their butt.
The best treatment is a week of steriod pills. You can actually FEEL the hives melt away. But you can’t use that really for more than a week or two.
Then it’s back to Benadryl. The non-drowsy anithistimines like Claritan work but only about half as good as old Benadryl. The problem is Benadryl makes you very tired. They say that effect wears off, but I never noticed it did.
As I said, I’d go through periods all my life. The hives come last two to six month then disappear for years on end, then they come back again.
I actually was tested at the Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopikins for this and every single tests from scratch test to blood tests have turned up negative. It was especially bad when I lived in Florida. The colder the climate the better it was. In fact I moved to Rochester in the Winter (Where they Mayo Clinic is) and the hives went away very quickly.
I had a reaction to penicillin. My face and lips got very swollen and ugly. It was scary. The result is to not take any more penicillin.
I have no other reactions. I can walk in poison ivy and not have anything happen.
FYI we’re going in Monday after school so I’ll let you know what the doctor says. I haven’t tracked it closely enough to see if it might be hormonal but I guess that’s something else to consider given the fact that there’s weeks in between episodes.