Why do so many suffer from hives these days?

I would never have asked that question were it not for the fact that I’ve had red, itchy, burning, and puffiness on my face for about 3 weeks, with daily flare ups that leave the skin hyper dry. When it flares it feels like a chemical burn or flash burn. I’ve never had any allergies, but it was diagnosed as hives, possibly triggered by stress.

I searched around online about hives symptoms and cures and found comments from hundreds of sufferers. There are lots of suggestions for relief and cures, but actually finding something that works requires much trial and error. Solutions hailed by some don’t work at all for others. Some people have been suffering without relief for years, and are getting no answers from either mainstream doctors or alternative naturopaths.

One hive article from 2011 sparked lots of comments which included this astute observation by a woman named Elly whose husband had recently succumbed to the symptoms described by the others.

“About a week ago my husband began with the same symptoms as all of you for the past year of this site. It has become increasingly worse. The interesting thing is, as I researched, I found that thousands of people around the U.S. are getting this and it’s becoming more prominent as time goes on.

“All walks of life, all ages, genders, religions, etc… makes no difference in mountains, deserts, oceans. Would be interesting to find the common denominator. Could help in the the cure.

“I’m going to try the Pearl Acidophlis on him and see if that works. I know this is not contagious or all of the rest of us would have it in the households that are effected with one individual. I don’t believe that doctors know what it is as in every case they have either skated past the problem or ignored it.”

Elly wondered if there was an overall environmental cause, like increased solar activity. I suspect people are weak due to a variety of bad habits and man made causes. Elly’s observation about ubiquity makes me wonder if the “hives” are being triggered by the same unidentified environmental problem that is causing trees to look sickly around the planet.