How to manage chronic Hives/ Urticaria

Chronic urticaria/ hives are life quality degrading problem irritating and frustrating. Generally medicines like antihistamines (cetirizine) and Allegra are prescribed by doctors which provide temporary relief and specifically useful in case of acute urticaria whereas in chronic case patient is just put on a lifetime use of these medicines. Pop a pill and you are okay for few hours depending upon the severity of your disease. 

I have a personal experience with the problem from last 5 years and have found that medicines are of little use, though a better relief and management can be sought from ayurvedic medicines with least side effects. You can use the medicines to give a better control once but the cause of the problem will not be eradicated by them also and again you may feel that urticaria flares are again rising. 

Best solution to the problem of chronic urticaria is its management rather than eradication. You have to look for causes that flare up the problem. But as per surveys 50 percent of people are never able to find the cause of the flares. As per ayurvedic theory all diseases arise through one common place i.e stomach. Our digestion and what we eat is the root cause of all the problems arising in our body. Yet it is really difficult to manage proper food, exercise and rest regime to be always in top condition since these are the pillars of great digestion and great health and a fast paced life hasn't helped the cause. This causes unbalance in body which causes one or all of them (pitta, kapha and vata) to change their normal levels causing various problems in body. 

To manage urticaria best way is to see what is actually causing the flare up as I had written before but if that had been the case you wont have been reading this article till now, so you practically don't have any idea or very little idea that what is causing the problem. So I would like to share my insight on the solution to manage urticaria by management I mean you will have to follow a lifetime of avoiding a few things and doing a few.

FIRST THE THINGS THAT YOU SHOULD DO 

1. Get yourself an allergy test and a full body test along with Vitamin B12 , Vitamin D. Avoid the foods totally you are allergic to after the results of tests and if you are deficient in vitamin  B12 and D, chances are there if you are vegetarian you may be deficient in B12 and if you don't work in Sun you would be definitely D deficient. Take proper doses of single/both vitamins in whichever you are deficient after consultation with your doctor and if possible ask him/her to prescribe you a good multivitamin and mineral supplement containing Omega-3 and Ginseng/ other good herbs extracts. Take them for a month at least. Deficiency in vitamins a and  b complex and minerals like zinc, selenium, calcium, iron may cause digestion problems which can flare up urticaria. If your allergy tests shows all items that you eat as allergens then you can follow what I will list as thing to avoid.

2. Destress yourself try Yoga especially pranayama and do physical exercises whatever you like running , walking and weight training if possible. Though this is not essential but this may help a long way to achieve better results. But try not to get yourself in stressful situation or practice to deal with stress like mediation or change of thinking since stress impacts digestion system and this will always adversely effect your situation in contrast to your chronic urticaria problem. Relax nothing is in your hands , give your best and enjoy whatever results are coming don't force yourself on the results in your life. Results are not in your hands. Thought this is difficult to practice but if you try you will get some degree of relaxation which is best for your digestion system.

3. Eat a balanced diet with a lot of fibre and maintain proper sleep pattern.

4 Use good quality cooking oil and wear good quality cotton clothes thought there is not much change if you don't in general.

THINGS YOU SHOULD AVOID

These things are in actual more important especially if you are not coming to conclusion what is causing flare 

1. Don't eat anything, literally anything that has any kind of preservatives, colurs and flavours in them, means you cannot eat anything packeted, processed. Eat direct from farm fresh vegetables, pulses preferably organic. This single step may help in almost eradicating urticaria problems. Modern food style that has preservatives is the biggest cause of digestive problems and common cause of problems like urticaria. Mother nature has provided so much to eat explore that , most of manmade things are dubious in will always remain questionable for their potent effect on our health.

2 Don't drink tea and coffee these may be causing your urticaria problems to flare up, green tea or any other kind of tea should also be avoided.

3 Try not to take items or reduce their intake which have flavonoids like capsicum and bitter gourd though this may vary from case to case.

4 Don't drink alcohol other soft drinks and packages juices this will definitely flare up your problems. Alochol can sometimes be unavoidable😊 but then be ready for 2-3 days of urticaria flares. If you are serious then you can control yourself though.

All the above thing I have mentioned are based on personal experience and will vary from person to person but I thought that this should be shared with people as it may benefit to a lot of them.

You will have to be strong to avoid anything that is unnatural i.e packeted preservatives containing food but this will help the most. Anything that doesn't occur in nature directly in nature but derived from it will be added with preservatives best to avoid them atleast for 2 months to see the changes but when you start avoiding do it continuously for 2 months so that effective changes can be felt.

Prime motive is to see the things that can change your digestion and effect your urticaria problems.

I have added everything above to the best of my knowledge but it may not help/suit everyone and I am sorry for that, may you get solution to your problem at the earliest but there is no harm in trying the methods that I have listed above, if you have any questions then I will be happy to answer them though I am busy as all of you are but I will try to answer them when it is possible to reply thanks for the time you devoted to read this article thoroughly I hope you all get cured and again live a normal life. I will keep updating the article if any new solution arrives till then Godspeed.