Chronic hives, or chronic urticaria, are some of the hardest hives to diagnose. Like all hives, chronic hives are batches of raised red and white itching welts. These welts can be various sizes and they can even group together in some cases.

When they group together, they form areas that are known as plaques. Most people experience acute or physical urticaria, which are easier to diagnose. However, not everyone is so lucky. There are some people who experience these chronic hives and may have to subject themselves to many tests to figure out what is causing these hives.

Chronic hives, or chronic urticaria, is defined as being hives that last longer than six weeks. Chronic urticaria will clear up, but it will keep coming back frequently. This is a long-term problem that many people are fighting to deal with.

As fore mentioned, a person with chronic hives may have to subject themselves to many tests in order to find out what is causing them. In rare cases, these chronic hives are related to an underlying problem such as lupus, thyroid disease or some autoimmune disorder.

These latter problems are why it is so important to figure out what is causing a person's chronic hives. As with idiopathic angioedema, a person who is experiencing chronic hives will have to see an allergy specialist.

An allergy specialist will be able to put a person experiencing chronic hives on an elimination diet. This elimination diet will serve the purpose of trying to find any food or food additive intolerance. A food or food additive may not show up on an allergy test, so food intolerance must be searched for.

By using an elimination diet, the specialist will sometimes be able to pinpoint any food intolerance. If this food elimination diet does not help the specialist come up with any answers, there will be skin tests and some other tests done to try and determine the cause of the chronic hives however even with all of these tests the outcome is often less than conclusive.

Airborne allergen particles are sometimes the cause of an allergic reaction. A skin test will show what allergen particles a person has come into contact with recently.

There are many cases where chronic hives will go on without a cause being identified, (idiopathic) However, by using a multifaceted approach it is possible to beat the condition without having to correctly identify the offending allergen.

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by Kate Andrews - 19/8/09

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