[The Fox & the Hound]

I get hives at night. They only get worse at night ,& are mostly home, if not all gone in the day.

Why is this? I think there hives

I had a reaction to penicillin as a kid.

The hives were always there but they seemed to get worse at night. Never understood why.

[Jinxx_]

Could be an allergic reaction to a medication you're taking...

[tealBumblebee]

Could you be allergic to the detergent you are washing your sheets/covers with? Also, I used to be allergic to my bedroom (specifically) and I now know that I am allergic to dustmites. Perhaps you can see an allergist and get tested for environmental factors? Take pics of the welts/hives to show him/her or even your GP.

[SnakeCharmer]

I've had the same thing happen to me. The doc reminded me I have an over-reactive auto-immune system and ingesting an allergen combined with some extra added emotional stress at the time combined to trigger an out-of-control immune response that resulted in hives every evening for a month.

The doc said the body has an inflammation cycle. This is normal and natural. Mine just happened to be highest in the early evening. I'd noticed this before when I had a cold. In the early evening, the congestion would increase dramatically. The doc said it was all normal.

He gave me a cortico-steroid shot in the buttocks. It works by calming down the body's out-of-control immune response. Basically, my body had been attacking itself.

He said it should work within 5 days. It worked in three. The hives stopped -- after a month of nightly suffering -- and have not come back.

I'd gone through the whole nine yards of eliminating every possible allergen I could think of. I did an elimination diet. I washed all my clothes and bedding in plain water three times to make sure all the detergent from past washings was removed. I thoroughly cleaned the entire house with vinegar water. I tumbled my pillows in a blazing hot dryer to kill dust mites. I stopped using cosmetics and lotions. I even stopped using shampoo and soap. By then I looked like hell! And none of it made the slightest difference.

I was beginning to think I'd become one of those unfortunate people who have developed an allergy to the 21st century, an allergy to everything. I've known a few who really suffered.

The doc said when my immune system goes so severely out of whack I do become temporarily sensitive to many things, but they're not real allergies.

As soon as the shot kicked in, all those sensitivities left. I'm still allergic to the three things I've been allergic to all my life. But not everything in the known universe as I had feared was happening.

I feel very lucky. The doc said that if I'd stalled around and waited too long, it would have been much more difficult to calm my immune system back down to a normal level.

That worked for me. Maybe it will work for you. The shot he gave me was a generic version of Kenalog.

He also told me to take diphenhydromine antihistamine (OTC) at the first sign of hives again and he gave me a prescription for an Epi-pen in case I get a really bad reaction. Just in case. But so far, so good. No problems.

Hope all goes well for you.