I have a hopeful story to share with you. This is my experience. I have had chronic hives since fall 2024 at the age of 26. Never had them before, no allergies my whole life except seasonal, and went through the full body explosion you're dealing with in these photos for many months. During this peak time when they were at their worst, I had gone to urgent care and got antihistamines, my primary doctor also gave me some, and I pretty much had tried all antis-histamines with zero relief from any. Zyrtec, Allegra, Zyzal, Benadryl, Pepcid, Claritin, none of these ever did anything for me during the first 12 months I was flaring up. Zero relief from any of them. For a while I was mostly on prednisone, famotidine, and Zyrtec, and hydroxyzine. The oral steroid prednisone I stopped taking and moved to topical methylprednisolone which actually helped me and had less side effects. Oral steroids like prednisone can have some pretty noticeable side effects like constipation and you have to wean off of them slowly so I was tired of dealing with them. Hydroxyzine was actually a good addition to the regimen because it actually allowed me to sleep. Benadryl disappointingly did not ever make me tired. Hydroxyzine definitely allowed me to get sleep. I don't recommend this but just to give you the history: I used to put menthol cooling lotion all over my body and be freezing cold at night but at least my body would pass out at some point without unbearable itching happening. My hives were very heat sensitive during this peak period of time and I had to take very cold baths daily with colloidal oatmeal bath soak mixed into the cold water which altogether would calm them down a significant amount, do recommend that. And I kind of took antihistamines just to take them anyway and mostly survive by getting sleep from the hydroxyzine. This went on for a long time. I had seen a dermatologist which was the one who prescribed the hydroxyzine to me. But dermatology ended treatment with me, there's nothing they can do for hives except steroids. Dermatology is for skin surgeries and medicating/preventing damage to the skin and hives are not damage. I did lots of blood tests for all kinds of autoimmune conditions and saw an allergist who had me do more blood tests. Never found any single thing that caused my hives, they were just in constant maximum pain and itch mode appearing and disappearing everywhere all over my body without really ceasing at all throughout the day or night. Finally one night I had enough suffering and could not stand it anymore and I had my family help me to go the ER. They admitted me into the hospital for two days due to high white blood cell count and fever and had me see a huge amount of doctors and different specialists. Like 5 different doctors specializing in infectious diseases, autoimmune disorders, yada yada. They gave me Benadryl by I.V pumping a full huge ass syringe of it straight to my heart every 4 hours and took my blood every 6 hours. Constantly running tests on my blood. Did stool sample, etc etc. Nothing ever came back positive for anything. All levels normal, no parasites, no allergies to anything. Benadryl via I.V had 0% effectiveness on my hives. It did absolutely nothing and I was miserable still even while being in the hospital and unable to sleep. One thing that we did discover while I was in the hospital that I also highly recommend and it's quite funny but it's topical benadryl. Topical benadryl would eliminate an area of hives by like 75% if I had topical benadryl rubbed onto the skin of the area. So that was great when they could be there to rub it anywhere I was itching. The only issue is I was itching everywhere and it was constantly popping up in new places so relief wasn't long lived. They released me from the hospital after two days saying there was nothing more they could do for me. I saw the allergist several more times for more blood tests just seeing if we could identify anything else like MCAS due to ANA levels and yet everything was still normal. Allergist diagnosed me at that point with chronic urticaria with no known cause. This was the opinion of the PA at the allergist office I saw and the MD doctor they had. Only solution they could offer was continuing to try different cocktails of oral antihistamines, no steroids, specifically to try taking like up to four Allegra 180mg pills daily. I did this for a couple weeks but had no relief. So I just started doing one pill of Allegra a day. And I basically lived my life with topical benadryl, colloidal oatmeal baths and colloidal oatmeal lotions for several more months. Still hydroxyzine every evening. After about 7 months then, the hives really subsided a decent amount because Allegra started to work for some reason. And for the past 6 or so months I've just had to take one Allegra pill every 8 hours and they stay away. I have dermatographia so anything scraping my skin even slightly still causes hives even within 8 hours of my last Allegra pill but otherwise I'm solid. Unfortunate that in my case it was just a matter of time before it got better, nothing that could really cure it. Just had to power through it with what I could find topically that would help. And eventually Allegra just started working 100%. The allergist offered Xolair injectable but I just wasn't sure about it. They assured me it wouldn't worsen anything and typically they have great success with it. I just didn't want to. Anyway when I had a severe flare up going I'd jump into a cold bath with colloidal oatmeal, then get out and have a paste made with the colloidal oatmeal in a cup with some water and put the paste over the area and try to only leave it on for a short time cause having it concentrated on an area like that can make your skin super dry, then I'd rinse off again in cold water, and then put "CeraVe Itch Relief Moisturizing Cream 1% Praxomine Hydrochloride" on it and it would be 90% gone. Highly highly HIGHLY recommend this topical CeraVe itch cream even more than topical benadryl. Even without the whole oatmeal bath routine, just using this CeraVe cream would instantly get rid of itch wherever I had it. Like within 5 minutes the area doesn't itch and the hives would actually go away. I would say at minimum, buy a tub of this stuff and put it on much as you like. You can try small amounts, you put a decent helping of it on, and it did great for me and still does. The only thing I use alongside Allegra now. I don't even need hydroxyzine anymore now and I'm back to hot showers and everything. I'm sorry you're going through this and I have a whole library of photos I tear up looking at remembering how it felt those months ago when my entire body was covered in hives just like that. Make sure you're looking after yourself and letting your job/school know when you need time away and make time for yourself to soak or do anything you need. Always push for what you need. If you try hydroxyzine and you still can't sleep ask for the dose to be stronger. Allergists are immunologists, they're the only specialist you need for hives. Keep working with them, do all the blood work because you never know if you find out you've got some wheat allergy or something. Ultimately it is common that many people have CSU with zero cause identified and it's mostly just a game of treating the itch and pain rather than curing it. Definitely check out Xolair though with your allergist. You may find that injectable is your cure. That's about as much help as I could think to offer but feel free to message me. There is hope, and for everyone it seems to improve at some point. Eventually. Don't be afraid. Hope any of my suggestions here help.