If you suffer from hives, you know that they are no fun at all. They itch, they hurt, and they don’t look nice. Before you go out and buy medicine, you might want to try a natural remedy for hives.
Baking Soda
One of the oldest, best, and well-known natural remedies for hives is baking soda. Baking soda has anti-inflammatory properties which can help to reduce the severity, redness, and the itchiness which often accompany hives. The easiest way to use baking soda as a natural remedy for hives is to add it into the bath water you use to bathe. You should add around half a cup to a full cup of baking soda to your bath water. Make sure that the bath water is warm or even just lukewarm. You do not want the bathwater to be really hot because that will just further irritate the hives.
Heat is not good for hives. You will want to stay in this baking soda bathwater for at least 30 minutes for it to take full effect. Another thing that you can do if you don’t want to take a full baking soda bath is to mix a few tablespoons of baking soda with some warm water and make a paste out of it.
Use the paste and apply it to the affected area, leaving it for 10 or 15 minutes before gently rinsing it off with warm water. Be sure to rinse gently as scrubbing your skin will only make things worse. The good thing about baking soda is that you can use this remedy several times per day if required.
A Cold Compress
Like we just mentioned above, heat is not good for hives because it will only make them worse, make them swell up more, and probably make you itchier too. Many skin and allergy specialists say that cold is a great remedy for hives and the colder the better.
The reasoning here is that histamine is a big cause of hives. Histamine is released and carried through the blood stream to the surface of your skin. Cold causes your blood vessels to constrict, whereas heat causes them to expand. Therefore, using a cold compress will cause your blood vessels to shrink, thus minimizing the delivery of histamine to your skin.
This should help to make hives shrink and reduce the severity of symptoms. The best way to go about this is to wrap some ice cubes in a cloth, or just use a cold pack as for a beer cooler, wrapped in a cloth, and apply it to the affected area. You will want to apply the cold compress to your skin, the affected area, for around 10 minutes, doing so 3 to 5 times per day as needed.
A cold shower or bath will help too, but the freezing cold from the ice is the best option. Be sure that you never apply the ice directly to your skin without some kind of cloth or towel as a barrier as it can cause ice burns and simply make things even worse and more painful.
Oatmeal
Yet another good natural remedy that you can use to try and get rid of hives, or at least to reduce the severity of them, is oatmeal. Oatmeal is well-known for helping skin calm down, soothe the skin, and relieve itching. This is why many people take oatmeal baths when the chickenpox hit, because they calm the skin, soothe irritation, and take away some of the extreme itchiness. The best way to go about this is to wrap some oatmeal in cheesecloth or other material with a fine mesh texture.
Simply place this under the faucet as your bathtub is filling up in order to infuse the water with the properties of the oatmeal. You probably don’t want to just add it straight into the water because that will do nothing but create a sticky mess for you to clean up. You can also use some oatmeal, water, and cornstarch to form a paste that you can apply directly to the skin. Either way, oatmeal is known to help alleviate the symptoms and severity of hives.
Apple Cider Vinegar
Apple cider vinegar is another really good natural home remedy to treat the symptoms and the severity of hives. First of all, apple cider vinegar has several ingredients which help heal the skin. However, the most important aspect here is the fact that apple cider vinegar has anti-histamine properties and is shown to help relieve inflammation. It will also help the body’s immune system regulate its response.
There are a couple of ways you can use apple cider vinegar to help treat the symptoms of hives. The first way is to add 2 or 3 cups of it to your bath water. Once again, make sure that the bath water is only warm, a little on the cooler side because hot water will do you absolutely no favors. Soak in the apple cider vinegar bath for around 30 minutes.
Another way which you can use the apple cider vinegar is to mix equal parts cool water and apple cider vinegar, using to wash your skin a few times per day. Finally, you can also mix in a couple of tablespoons of apple cider vinegar with water and lemon juice as an oral treatment. It might taste bad, but the anti-histamine and anti-inflammatory properties will work their magic from the inside of your body.
Ginger
The other good solution to treat hives is ginger. Just like apple cider vinegar, ginger is a really strong in terms anti-inflammatory and anti-histamine properties. It helps to reduce swelling, itching, and the delivery of histamine to the skin. The best way to use ginger is to boil a few tablespoons of fresh ginger in ¾ cups of vinegar, adding some brown sugar to the mix. Use this solution and apply it to the skin a few times per day. Drinking ginger tea is known to help as well.
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Conclusion
All of these options are great in term of a natural remedy for hives, but if they persist and are very severe, you might want to seek medical attention or get a homeopathic medicine for hives named OxyHives.
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