Hives Over 30,000 patients cured of hives since 1990
What Are Hives On Hands?
Many people get hives on their hands from the top to the palms of their hands. Hives on hands are itchy, red, raised welts on the surface of the skin that seem to appear out nowhere. They are usually brought on by an allergic reaction to something that has made contact with your hands. In response, your immune system sends out histamine into your blood stream to fight off the allergens you have come in contact with. Hives on hands are curable 95% of the time with the right hives treatment.
What Causes Hives On Hands?
Hives on hands can be caused by certain fabrics, hand lotions, soaps, shampoos, detergents, sunlight (see sun hives), insect stings or bites, cold or hot temperatures, and handling or eating certain foods (such as egg whites for my toddler). The most common foods that cause an allergic reaction are tree nuts, peanuts, milk, eggs, tomatoes, berries, wheat and soy. Most hives on hands go away within a time frame of a few hours to a couple of days. However, there are chronic cases that last longer than 6 weeks, and these cases are normally idiopathic. This means that there is normally not a cause found for the hives on hands.
What Are The Symptoms of Hives On Hands?
Here are the most common hives on hands symptoms:
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Itchy raised, red welts on the surface of hands that may swell up into red or skin colored welts (known as wheals) with clearly defined edges.
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Wheals have the tendency to appear quickly and fade away over time.
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Hives on hands can spread to other regions - especially if the reaction is caused by a an allergen touching your skin. This is exactly what happens when my toddler touches egg whites.
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Hives on hands have been known to change shape and even merge into large areas of raised red skin.
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They can disappear and reappear within minutes, hours or days depending on the allergen exposure.
Are Hives On Hands Dangerous?
Hives on hands are your body's way of trying to fight off whatever allergen you have come into contact with. They are not dangerous unless they are accompanied by angioedema. Angioedema is much like hives on hands, but the swelling is seen below the skin instead of on the surface of the skin. Angioedema can take place on the hands, feet, lips, face and even in the throat. This condition reacts much like hives on hands and other areas, and will go away when the allergen is no longer present. In rare cases, angioedema has been known to restrict the throat to the point that breathing becomes labored resulting in fainting and suffocation. If you find this happening to you, call 911 immediately.
How Do I Get Rid Of My Hives On Hands?
Hives on hands have been known to last for up to a month, depending on if you get treatment or not. For the vast majority of my patients (around 99%), I recommend the hives medication OxyHives. It has none of the harmful side effects other medications do and has proven to eliminate hives outbreaks for 95% of my patients. I've been prescribing OxyHives for just over 10 years now and have found it it to be one of the few over the counter medications that actually eliminates hives outbreaks. Learn more on my hives treatment page. I make OxyHives available to all patients that come in to my office (whether you have an appointment or not), or you can order it directly from their website: www.oxyhives.com.
In around one percent of the viral hives cases I see, I prescribe a steroid. I try not to prescribe steroids anymore though due to the negative side effects: weight gain, jaundice, liver tumors, fluid retention and high blood pressure.
If you get hives on your hands more than once, write down the foods you have eaten or handled as well as medications and stress levels or changes in any detergents or soaps. Doing this regularly, if you have recurrent cases of hives on hands, will help you to determine your triggers. Staying away from triggers, as well as using OxyHives, will help you to cure your hand hives.