Urticaria, commonly known as hives, is a skin condition characterized by the sudden appearance of raised, red, and itchy welts on the skin. These welts can vary in size and shape and often come and go within a short period, typically lasting less than 24 hours.
They cause itching or a burning sensation along with swelling and inflammation. An allergic reaction usually causes urticaria but can also result from other factors.
Pathophysiology
The release of histamine and other chemicals from mast cells in the skin primarily causes urticaria. Mast cells are part of the immune system and are involved in allergic reactions. When triggered, these cells release histamine, leading to the characteristic symptoms of urticaria.
Common triggers include certain foods, medications, insect stings, latex, and infections. However, in some cases, the cause remains unknown, and it is referred to as idiopathic urticaria.
Stress is one of the most common mental factors. Chronic urticaria may also get triggered due to autoimmune disease, underlying thyroid disorders, etc.
Management of Urticaria
Getting to the root cause is the first step to managing urticaria with Homeopathy. It is important to understand the individual triggers, reactions, stress responses, and underlying chronic conditions rather than prescribing specific remedies to the case.
Acute urticaria may well find relief with any specific remedy; however chronic cases demand a deeper understanding of the case, presenting symptoms and causative factors.
Here are Clarke’s remedies for urticaria:
Some other homeopathic remedies that may be considered for urticaria include:
Aconite: Great heat, thirst, frequent pulse, sleeplessness; spots like flea-bites, itching unchanged by scratching; agonizing anxiety and heat of body.
Anacardium: URTICARIA TUBEROSA, with itching, burning and swelling ending in desquamation; intense redness of skin, with eruption of little blisters and unbearable itching, (<) evenings and when in bed.
Antimonium crud: Urticaria with INTENSE GASTRIC CATARRH, (<) by acids and heat; while lumps with red areolae and itching.
Apium grav: Stinging itching urticaria, accompanied by shuddering and changing location when allayed by scratching, left side mostly affected, at night, by undressing.
Antipyrin: Urticaria, especially in women, intense itching of thighs, extending up abdomen, tears herself with her nails, feet icy cold, recent cases.
Bovista: Urticaria nearly covering the whole body, with rheumatic lameness; ill-humor and irritability; absence of mind and difficult of fixing his attention; scurvy; inflammation of eyelids, with nightly agglutination; lips cracked in some places crusty.
Calcarea carb: Chronic urticaria, which always disappears in the fresh air, (Sep., (<)in fresh air); elevated red strips on tibia, with severe itching and burning after rubbing.
Chloral: Eruption on arms and legs, exactly like urticaria, in large, raised wheals, with intense, irritating itching, oedematous swelling of face, cheeks, eyelids and ears, coming from a chill, not from heat.
Dolichos pruriens: Intolerable itching all over body, especially in PREGNANT WOMEN, (>) at night, preventing sleep (<) from scratching, with no perceptible eruption on skin.
Dulcamara: Hives come on at night; especially when the nights are cool, with heavy dew, after a hot day or when weather changes from warm to cool and damp; urticaria with violent cough and oedema of glands; feverish urticaria, obliging one of scratch, and burning after scratching, every eruption being preceded by sensation of pricking over whole body; eruption of white, irregular blotches raised upon the skin, surrounded with red areola, appearing in warmth and disappearing in cold, on extremities, face, chest and back, violently itching and burning after scratching; headache, want of appetite, nausea, bitter taste, vomiting, intense aching in pit of stomach and praecordial region, restlessness and sleeplessness, night – sweats turbid, dark urine, diarrhoea, pins in limbs. URTICARIA FROM GASTRIC DISORDERS.
Pulsatilla: HIVES OF GASTRIC OR UTERINE ORIGIN; urticaria with diarrhoea, itching, (<) at night; chilly all the time, even in a warm room.
Rumex: Itching in various parts, (<) on lower limbs, while undressing; vesicular eruption, itching when uncovered and exposed to cool air.
Urtica urens [Urt-u]
Itching and burning of the skin, as if scorched; raised red blotches; fine stinging points; pale rash requiring constant rubbing; consequences of suppressed urticaria; eruption and itching disappear as soon as she lies down and reappear immediately after rising; oedema of face, chest and limbs without inflammation (Medusa).
One of the newest entries in the Homeopathy Pharmacy is Histaminum. Histaminum is a homeopathic remedy derived from histamine, a signaling molecule produced by cells during an allergic response or inflammation. Histamine plays a role in various processes in the body, including regulating immune responses and triggering the symptoms of allergies.
Histaminum is a frequently indicated intercurrent remedy used for various clinical conditions related to allergy, including hives or urticaria. It is used in 6C, 30, or 200 potencies.
To conclude understanding the presentation is a definite pre-requisite to treating any ailment and true healing only takes place when the remedy strikes the symptom-similarity.
Urticaria is easily managed with correct, precise application of Homeopathy principles and laws.