Hives can appears suddenly and without warning. A hives rash is accompanied with an intense feeling of itchiness it can turn a bright red color quite rapidly. Other terms are wheals, or plaques. They, oftentimes, appear as pale red bumps. They might range in size from the size of a pencil tip up to the width of a few inches. Can stress cause hives? Allergies are discussed as a reason for hives but also many say that they are related to one’s stress levels.

Angioedema is when the swelling occurs underneath the skin rather than at the surface; and urticaria, which might last an hour or might last a day, is when it occurs on top of the skin. Angioedema lasts longer than the surface form; but it tends to go away in less than about 24 hours. Hives patches move and migrate which can be fascinating to watch. A deep swelling can be on the hands, feet, eyes and lips. Many people remember the scene in the movie “Hitch” with Will Smith where he desperately was running around the drug store to get relief from his facial swelling that occurred from eating out at a restaurant.

Sometimes someone can get hives in the throat or swelling of the tongue which will cause the blocking of the airways, resulting in difficulty breathing. In this case it might be misclassified as asthma or emphysema. A real danger can be anaphylaxis and if there is respiratory difficulty and swelling medical attention must be sought immediately. Be sure to tell this to your children.

Hives and angioedema occur when histamine causes blood plasma to leak out of the smaller blood vessels, finding its way under the skin. Insect stings, chemicals which are in food, allergic reactions, medicine responses and exposure to the sun are all things which can initiate an attack of hives. Whether this would have been triggered if one had less stress is the question. Opinions differ on the role that stress plays in causing or aggravating hives. Some say that they will always get hives around finals time at school and it is not related to any external trigger of a food or environmental factor, for example.

On the other hand people notice that their immune system may cause a skin outbreak due to ingesting peanuts (or nearly any other kind of nut), chocolate, milk, fresh berries, eggs, tomatoes, soy, fish or any of hundreds of other foods or chemicals. Even such common drugs as aspirin and high blood pressure medicines can initiate hives. Also certain food can causes rashes that didn’t in past. I found for myself that has happened with peppermint tea as well as cranberries. I had been able to have both of these in past and in fact used to have peppermint tea daily. Suddenly, my body developed an intolerance to it.

So, can stress cause hives? Anything which initiates that histamine response is what ’causes’ hives. In fact, some veterans will have spontaneous marks, burns or bruises that suddenly appear on their bodies. This happens just after they thought of some traumatic event. They are labelled as the common stress rash . These same symptoms can be initiated by hypnosis or can occur with people who are particularly susceptible to suggestion. So, it seems that stress and histamine response have a relationship. But you can be completely relaxed and have a food intolerance resulting in a hives outbreak. The body and mind have a complicated relationship and the itchy rash can be aggravated by stress for sure. Some will argue it can be the sole cause, while others say it is a contributing reason.