The body's natural reaction to stress can cause, aggravate, and temporarily treat the symptoms of chronic urticaria. Urticaria is the medical term for the intensely itchy allergic skin rash known as hives. Up to 20% of the population suffer through at least one outbreak of hives in their lifetime, affecting women twice as often as men. (1) Recent studies confirm the role of stress in disease causation based on how the body reacts to the physiological hormonal responses generated by long-term exposure to stress. (2) In some cases, this response causes the body to react as it would in the case of an allergic reaction.

Skin rashes, most commonly hives, are one of many allergic conditions manifested by this hormonal imbalance. In addition, the stress hormones have a particular effect in women when they interfere with the hormonal balance of estrogen and progesterone, which could explain the above statistic. (3) Awareness of this condition may be vital to effective treatment for those who suffer with chronic hives because 95% of cases are idiopathic (no known cause) and can even be life-threatening. (1,4) In these cases, treatment should include personalized stress management for optimum long-term symptom management. Not only is it a good-idea to include stress management in treating the symptoms of chronic hives, the body's overall health and wellness depends on it. (2,5)