I like to get poked – how about you?

Bored and looking for a good time I headed down to my medical clinic yesterday to get poked repeatedly. Actually, I had scheduled allergy testing because I’ve been having some severe intestinal distress (yay, like you wanted to know this!) for the last six months and the other changes my doctor and I have been trying (new diabetes meds for one) haven’t been helping. I was hoping to discover that I was violently allergic to something really common, alas that wasn’t the case.

I originally had allergy testing done in 1979 and discovered that I was allergic to most animals, dust, mold, all grasses, weeds and trees and some foods. The animal thing wasn’t that big of a deal, I don’t ride horses any more so no more hives there and once I’ve been around a dog or cat for long enough I just become semi-immune to them, or at least the acute symptoms disappear. I also avoid skin products with lanolin in them because I’ve found that it makes it difficult to shave when your shaving cream gives you hives. I pop a Claritin every day to help control the dust, mold and green things allergies, it also helps keep my eczema from flaring up. The food stuff, I just avoid what I know makes me sick and we’re all good.

So after 60 something pokes in my forearms I didn’t learn much new. I’m still allergic to all the big ones that I’ve been allergic to for the last 30 years, no shock there. Dairy is still an issue, but that’s fine because I haven’t drank cow’s milk in 30 years because of the original allergy testing and the fact that I think it tastes gross now. The tests did reveal three new foods to avoid – eggs, peanuts and oats. Maybe removing these three will make a difference in the gut thing – I do eat a lot of peanut butter so we’ll see. Nothing life threatening – no throat closing because of peanut dust so that’s good. Nothing like the egg allergy my niece Chloe experiences, eggs cause her to have seizures and she had a reaction once just from having raw egg on her skin.

The doctor seemed most concerned with my cat allergy since we have a cat. His suggestions? First he said to get rid of the cat – hah like that’s going to happen. Then he suggested that I shave the cat once a month and bathe her once a week. I just looked at him and said “you don’t have a cat do you?”. Of course his answer was no. I’ve had pets for the last 30 years and I plan on having them for the next 30 regardless of the fact that they make me sneeze and wheeze and sometimes cause my eyes to swell shut. Funny, the doctor actually thought I might take his recommendations… he doesn’t know me at all!

Oh well, what a fun way to spend an afternoon. All I know for sure is I can’t wait to go back on my Claritin today, my skin is about ready to get ripped off from all the scratching.