Herbal remedies for treatment of urticaria in view of Iranian Medicine and evaluation of relevant evidence in conventional medicine

Urticaria is a relatively common skin disease characterized by red or white itchy and transient swellings. In more severe cases, it can reduce level of consciousness and be life-threatening due to swelling of tongue or throat and airway obstruction In conventional medicine, this disease is treated symptomatic and mainly by antihistamines. Studies have indicated that urticaria is similar to "shara" (a type of skin disease mentioned in Persian medicine) in terms of etiology, description, clinical symptoms and diagnosis. In Persian medicine (Iranian traditional medicine) litrature, efficacy of several medicinal plants for the treatment of "shara" has been explaind. This study is a review on the effective herbal remedies in the treatment of urticaria based on search in Iranian medicine resources, and conventional medicine litrature. Data were extracted from Iranian medicine textbooks and scientific databases including Google scholar, Pub Med, Web of Science and Scopus. It was found that Iranian medicine scholars have used 48 different medicinal plants to treat and reduce the complications of urticaria and the recent scientific studies have proven antiinflammatory, antioxidant and immune-regulating properties in 45 of these plants.