Example of How Do Antihistamines work?
Start
Let’s say that you are allergic to the perfume in a lotion, but you get
some on your skin by accident. You break out in an itchy rash where
the lotion touched your skin.
What is happening is that the perfume in the lotion caused the cells in
your body to release histamine. The histamine gets onto the surface
of your skin cells and causes an itchy rash. What do you do?
You take a dose of antihistamine such as Benadryl (diphenhydramine)
or Allegra (fexofenidine). The antihistamine acts like a bouncer. It kicks
the histamine off of the skin cells and prevents the histamine from
reacting to cause inflammation, redness and itch.
Within minutes the rash should subside and the itching go away.