What Are The Symptoms Of Hives?

about 48 hours ago both my hands and feet started to itch so severely that I am unable to accomplish even the smallest tasks from not being able to stop scratching,it has taken me six minutes to type this. Do you have any ideas on what may be causing this?there are no hives on either my hands or feet but over the last 24 hours I have been braking out with hive patchs through out the rest of my body but each patch wont last any more then a couple hours before it clears up just for another one to break out some where else.