Signs and Symptoms
Urticaria pigmentosa is characterized by excessive amounts of mast cells in the skin. Red or brown spots are often seen on the skin, typically around the chest and forehead. These mast cells, when irritated (e.g. by rubbing the skin, heat exposure), produce too much histamine, triggering an allergic reaction that leads to hives localized to the area of irritation, sometimes referred to as Darier's sign. Severe itching usually follows, and scratching the area only serves to further symptoms. Symptoms can be mild (flushing and hives that require no treatment), moderate (diarrhea, tachycardia, nausea/vomiting, headache, and fainting), or life-threatening (vascular collapse requiring emergency treatment and hospitalization).
Read more about this topic: Urticaria Pigmentosa
Famous quotes containing the words signs and, signs and/or symptoms:
“Time has an undertaking establishment on every block and drives his coffin nails faster than the steam riveters rivet or the stenographers type or the tickers tick out fours and eights and dollar signs and ciphers.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“When it is evening, you say, It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 16:2,3.
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)