Allergic Reaction??? And to what?

The past few days have been full of lots of questions, seeking, applying topical lotions, benadryl, steroids, swollen feet, aching feet, swollen hands and fingers, burning, stinging, and ALOT OF ITCHING. Wednesday morning at 1 am, Emma woke up itching all over her torso with what looked at the time like 20 or so mosquito bites. By 7 am they were full blown hives. They spread all over her body with hardly any relief at all from the itching and burning. Finally, after trying everything we could think of, even Aveeno oatmeal baths, we tried Aloe Vera and that seemed to work the best of all. The hives ran their course til Saturday pm/Sunday am. And when she woke up Sunday morning, they were completely gone! WE WERE SOOO EXCITED!!! And relieved! We likened it to the story of the man with leprosy in the Bible. We prayed each night for God to help Emma's hives go away and to give her some relief from the itching. Through it she learned how to apply aloe vera wherever she was itching and she had such a since of accomplishment about it! She also learned a great lesson about having to do things that may seem unpleasant at the time but are good for you. She hated the taste of the steroid and I can't blame her! She only had to take 5 doses of it and she did really well each of the first 4 times, she had a little hesitation but it took no time at all for her take it. Well, the last night of her medicine rounds she could not bring herself to take it, she kept jinxing herself and thinking too much about the taste of it. She'd stick her tongue in the medicine cup and shout "Yuck" only making it worse and drawing it out even longer. Granted, we could've "forced" her to take it and risk her spitting it out and choking on it but we wanted her to learn a lesson from it. We wanted her to choose to do what was best for her. And sure enough, 40 minutes later she took it! And boy was she glad to be done with it! And she was so proud of herself b/c it was hard but she did it!

This was day 3 of the hives. This is pretty much what it looked like all over her body. Her legs were cold, she had just gotten out of the bath when I took the picture, that is why they look so purple next to the redness of the hives. The hives were very hot to the touch also. I have never experienced anything like this and didn't know that hives could be like this.

Hopefully, I can figure out what caused it.