Be careful with hormonal drugs for hives

  Recently, in our clinical work, we often encounter patients with urticaria who have a severe rash and are in bad condition at the time of consultation, with generalized erythema, wind masses, facial swelling, chest tightness, wheezing, and labored breathing. Most of these patients have a common feature that there is a process of irregular application of hormone therapy after the disease. Some of them heard others say that oral “prednisone ate a good”, and then go to the pharmacy to buy their own, every now and then to eat a grain; others in some individual clinics to play dexamethasone, the results of a shot on the good, home a few days on the disease, and the more serious offenders.  The Chinese medicine is also called “rash block”, “ghost wind gab”, “hidden rash” and so on.  Western medicine believes that it is due to a complex etiology (about 3/4 of patients cannot find the cause, especially chronic urticaria patients), such as food, drugs, infections, physical factors, animal and plant factors, psychological factors, as well as visceral and systemic diseases that trigger the body to have a metabolic and non-metabolic reaction, resulting in the expansion of small blood vessels in the skin and mucous membranes and an increase in permeability and a limited edema reaction. The erythema and pemphigus of different sizes may appear on irregular parts of the body. This erythema and pemphigus can extend to all parts of the skin and mucous membranes of the body, so the patient’s performance can be mild or severe. About 15-20% of people have had at least one episode of urticaria in their lifetime.  Chinese medicine believes that this disease is mostly actual evidence at the beginning of the disease, while the long-term disease is mostly deficiency evidence, and wind is the main external cause of the disease. “The wind is the longest of all diseases and is good at moving and changing several times. The wind-cold is a wind-cold evil, the wind-heat is a wind-heat evil, and the two can be transformed into each other. Therefore, the treatment should be mainly to dispel the wind, and according to the different mixed cold and heat, use the method of clearing heat or dispersing cold as appropriate. The treatment should be accompanied by the method of benefiting the Qi and nourishing the Blood over time. According to the dermatologists in China, urticaria can be divided into four types: wind-heat type, wind-cold type, deficiency of Yin and Blood, deficiency of Blood by wind and deficiency of heart and spleen.  Most acute and chronic urticaria can be cured without hormones through the guidance of a professional dermatologist. Only a very few special clinical urticaria require hormones, and the dosage and time of use are regulated, but some clinics are now accustomed to hormone therapy, which is fast-acting but has many side effects, and irregular application can lead to recurrence of the original lesions or the appearance of new erythema and desquamation after discontinuation of the drug.  Patients suffering from urticaria must be treated early and as soon as possible to prevent the development of chronic and persistent urticaria due to prolonged illness. The most important thing is that you can get the most out of your life.