Because ranting is cathartic.
My allergies used to be normal. Excessive, but normal. As in, stuffy nose, sneezing, watery eyes... those of you who have them will know the basic symptoms. Now, for some reason, everything is bypassing my nose - which is very uncomfortable. I won't go into details, because it's rather gross, which is why I find it depressing, too.
The Ent doctor doesn't know why it started (sometimes viruses like the cold can last for a longer time, causing similar problems, but the only cold I've had recently didn't begin till the allergies had been worse for weeks), which means there's no easy fix. A change in medicine, he suggested, and guafenisine, which tastes nasty, in case anyone's interested. Neither of these things have cleared it up yet. The only other solution, according to the Ent, is to get tested for allergies so they can make me a "special sauce" and then give me shots - I've heard twice a week, once a week, for a year... Shots! Also, they have to monitor their victims for an hour after they administer the "special sauce", which means time off work...
I'm also wading through health insurance for the first time, and the plan I thought was great, really isn't that great if you've got to get expensive shots during office visits once a week for the next year.
The latest Green Guides issue has a short article on allergies... and how global warming contributes to them and makes them worse. As in, with warmer weather, the trees and flowers and grasses have longer pollinating seasons, which can make allergies last longer. More pollen can be produced, too. Not only that, but allergies evidently used to be an urban problem - until mass transit like trains transported the pollenating particles to the country. Then, in places like Arizona, which used to be a pollen and allergy-free state (it being desert), city planners started bringing in trees and bushes and flowers, etc to make it look less like a desert. Short-sightedly, most of those trees were male, which are the gender of trees that distribute pollen. Semen, if you will. Apparently, according to these city planners, having fruit drop on the ground was much more unpleasant. Hah.
So here I am, about to start the next, expensive, part of my life getting shots in the arm every week. Hopefully the inconvenience and pain will be balanced by some kind of correction of my allergic reactions to just about everything.
My allergies used to be normal. Excessive, but normal. As in, stuffy nose, sneezing, watery eyes... those of you who have them will know the basic symptoms. Now, for some reason, everything is bypassing my nose - which is very uncomfortable. I won't go into details, because it's rather gross, which is why I find it depressing, too.
The Ent doctor doesn't know why it started (sometimes viruses like the cold can last for a longer time, causing similar problems, but the only cold I've had recently didn't begin till the allergies had been worse for weeks), which means there's no easy fix. A change in medicine, he suggested, and guafenisine, which tastes nasty, in case anyone's interested. Neither of these things have cleared it up yet. The only other solution, according to the Ent, is to get tested for allergies so they can make me a "special sauce" and then give me shots - I've heard twice a week, once a week, for a year... Shots! Also, they have to monitor their victims for an hour after they administer the "special sauce", which means time off work...
I'm also wading through health insurance for the first time, and the plan I thought was great, really isn't that great if you've got to get expensive shots during office visits once a week for the next year.
The latest Green Guides issue has a short article on allergies... and how global warming contributes to them and makes them worse. As in, with warmer weather, the trees and flowers and grasses have longer pollinating seasons, which can make allergies last longer. More pollen can be produced, too. Not only that, but allergies evidently used to be an urban problem - until mass transit like trains transported the pollenating particles to the country. Then, in places like Arizona, which used to be a pollen and allergy-free state (it being desert), city planners started bringing in trees and bushes and flowers, etc to make it look less like a desert. Short-sightedly, most of those trees were male, which are the gender of trees that distribute pollen. Semen, if you will. Apparently, according to these city planners, having fruit drop on the ground was much more unpleasant. Hah.
So here I am, about to start the next, expensive, part of my life getting shots in the arm every week. Hopefully the inconvenience and pain will be balanced by some kind of correction of my allergic reactions to just about everything.
well I don't know if this will make you feel better or not, but I had to have a cocktail made for me when I was a little kid. I was allergic to EVERYTHING. much as you seem to be now.
ReplyDeleteThe pokes, I don't know if you've heard of it, or if they still do it this way, but they basically have a 2pronged fork. Tiny, like an olive fork, but for rice, and they dip it in various solutions, and then prod your arm in a neat little pattern, labeling on your arm which poke has what in it. Then, you wait a while and which ever location develops a mosquito bite looking itchy lump, that's what you're allergic too. So they line your arm, with little contaminated doublepokes.
When I was a kid, they did that, and the cocktail didn't work, so they had me come back in, and they did the double poke method, but with about 5x more samples. And because there were so many, they lined my back up and down back and forth with these little double pokes.
Hopefully you don't have to go to that extent, and even more hopefully, they've found a better way to test for allergies...
Anyway, the good part of all this is that I am mostly completely allergy free! Just a slight allergy to dust. and that only gives me a stuffy nose that goes away when I blow it.
-Ty
So it worked? I wonder if it works better on children, though...
ReplyDelete