Psychosomatic treatment of a case of chronic urticaria.

A 35-year-old Japanese woman presented with urticaria in January of 1992. As her symptoms gradually became worse, she came to our hospital in March of that year. I treated her with various combinations of antihistaminics and antiallergics. However, her symptoms did not respond and continued to deteriorate. Although her blood was analyzed in an attempt to identify antigenic or physical factors, no positive data were obtained. Because three kinds of psychological tests showed that the patient was highly anxious and depressive, I additionally treated her with psychotropics and psychotherapy in May of 1994. After a month, the symptoms began to disappear. She has since been free from the symptoms while taking medicine only twice a week. Our group recently presented the efficacy of psychotropics in patients with chronic urticaria. This case suggests that highly anxious or depressive cases with chronic urticaria should be treated not only dermatologically, but also psychologically.