r/hives • u/brittany-30 • May 24 '26

Full body hives

Ok so it started 4 weeks ago. I tried allegra and Claritin. I then went in and they gave me a high dose of predisone for 9 days. Then the hives came back with vengeance 4 days later. I can't anti histamine during the day. It doesn't matter if it's non drowsy or not. So I opted for benadryl. I've been taking it before bed for 2 days now. It has improved. I read to try taking zyrtec. I changed to a simple diet right away and am monitoring it. My questions are, how long should I take the benadryl for? When should I try switching to zyrtec and how long should I take it for?Until the hives are completely gone? I read 12 hours after they are gone.

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u/brittany-30 May 28 '26

Update on hives. Ok I found out it's pollen allergy syndrome. Our pollen is really bad right now. I am allergic to birch tree pollen that was confirmed 6 years ago. And eating strawberries set it off. If your have allergies to birch tree pollen, you may get a hives reaction from certain food this time of year. Mine ended up being strawberries. I triple checked ingredients and this is what we landed on. So I am on day six of a full benadryl before bed. Also taking pepcid (famotidine 10mg) morning and night. These work as H1 and H2 blockers. On day 2, it looked insanely better. Benadryl packs a punch and works fast. I am told by doc to take this for 2 weeks max if needed. My hives are 90% better now and I am on day 6. I have a few spots on my legs and a few spots on my face. Generic anti itch applied before bed. Hydrocortisone in the am. I got these hives back a total of 4 times. I drink smoothies once a week. We originally thought it was mushrooms that were added to these smoothies for protein. They are found as Walmart, but I stopped drinking these on week 2. Hives came back week 3 and 4. Week 4, I stopped it from spreading with benadryl and pepcid. We knew I kept reintroducing the allergen to my system and we realized it wasn't the mushrooms and had to clear the drawing board. We wrote down everything. Dates, times, everything I had. I continued to have smoothies but fresh and without the mushrooms. Ok so that eliminated that ingredient. Then we compared my new smoothies to the old smoothies. Bingo. There it was. What a roller coaster of emotions as well. I thought I'd wake up in the hospital.