text: Oh you poor thing.  I suffered with the same thing for months after the birth of each of my children.  My Naturopathic Physician said it was the anistetic that was causing the reaction in my case and nothing worked.  Diet helped some (no acidic foods),  I also drank lots of water and no alchohol (well, little and extra water on those days).\n\nI had an MD say that he could get me on the list with the best dermatologist in town, but no body really knows exactly what causes hives and all the derm will do is allergy stress tests and tell you to alkalinize your diet (no meat, sugar, etc.) until the problem goes away. I told him that I had success sleeping through the night using Claritin, so he didn't prescribe me anything stronger (I was nursing anyway - I didn't want anything stronger really).\n\nI think that the hive reaction was caused by stress - tremendous amounts of stress brought on by having a new baby, each time.  I think the single best thing I did for myself was turn to Louise Hay to help have a positive and relaxed attitude about my situation and I think that more than anything helped.  According to Louise Hay, hives are caused by small, hidden fears and making mountains out of mole hills.  She says the cure is to remind yourself as often as you can "I bring peace to every corner of my life".\n\nThat's what I did.  I tried to relax and bring my own peace to my own life and before long the hives were gone - I hardly noticed.  Someone said "How are those hives?"  one day and I said "wow, you know they haven't bothered me for a while".  I had just stopped thinking of them.\n\nIn the mean time, cold water compresses can help and soaking in a warm epsom salt bath.  There's also a great product called Coral Calcium, you can put that in the bath and in your drinking water to futher alkalinize your system - lots of veggies will too.\n\nTake heart - it will end.  Peace!