Welcome to Monday Mornings with Dr. Mona where each week I answer your questions.

To leave a message call 954-526-2641 and I may pick your question for a future episode.

Let's get to our first caller.

Hi Dr. Mona, I'm wondering if you could answer a question regarding viral infections and hives and

Thank you so much for this question. Yes, hives are actually really common in the infancy period

and childhood period. Some of the common reasons that a baby can get hives are viruses, so in illness,

allergies to a food or idiopathic. What that means is that there's no reason and the hives will

just come and go. I kind of describe that one as sensitive skin. So in terms of the virus

etiology, so we look at viruses causing an inflammatory response or a reaction in the body

and the skin is the largest organ that we have, so the skin can also show a reaction to a virus

by developing hives and hives are very characteristic. They look almost puffy. If you as an adult

have had a hive, you will not miss this on your child, but it's very characteristic. Sometimes

they can be itchy, sometimes they can start in one place and then go away in that location and

then pop up other places. In the etiology of viruses, these hives can last anywhere from a few

hours to five days, sometimes a little bit longer. So if your child has hives, it's important to

first know is this related to something that they ate? We want to make sure that are we missing a

food allergy when we think that, you know, you may think that it's a virus, but think about

anything that that child ate within the last hour. If it's something that's considered an

allergenic food or even if you're not sure, we would want to know that. Now, if you know that

it's not a food and the child is also sick, then yes, your etiology is probably a virus.

In general, you can treat symptomatically with either Benadryl or Zertek and then talk to your

child's pediatrician's office to determine which one to use, the dosing and what not. It's always

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