I Have an Itch

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 'Tis the season for allergies.


Normally, the spring/summer allergy season gives me a bit of sneezing and some itchy eyes. Nothing that a daily Claritin can't handle. When it finally starting warming up in April, I started daily Claritin and Flonase and trusted I'd be fine.

I think you can figure out that it is not fine.

One fine day in late April, I decided to go on a run to the grocery store [I mean literally a run; getting food motivates me to exercise]. I wore a mask and sunglasses, and these in theory should have prevented my body encountering many allergens. So I was caught off-guard when I started sneezing heavily in the grocery store. To put it vaguely, my mask became the nose-equivalent of a diaper. I had my husband pick me up.

the test
It took several days of heavy doses of Benadryl to finally control the sneezing. The misery was enough for me to find an allergist, consent to be pricked with 60 different allergens, and then start a 5-year regimen of allergy shots, a.k.a. immunotherapy. Basically, the idea is to expose my body to tiny but steadily-increasing doses of whatever I reacted to during that 60-allergen prick test, thus encouraging the body to stop thinking that pollen and mold are a threat to life.

I have to keep that misery in mind, because getting the shots twice a week is NOT fun. They make me so unbearably itchy for 2-3 days [so twice a week + 3 days of itching per shot = near-constant itching]. The drive to scratch overpowers any other thought; it drives me up. the. wall.



Mark has been fairly sympathetic, until this past week when he broke out in Shingles.

Ok, Mark. I can give you a couple weeks of my sympathy. 

I can surely spare a few out of my 260 week ordeal I have before me.

Comments

  1. Lindaswenson2020@gmail.comJune 19, 2021 at 3:07 PM

    I’m so very sorry you are so miserable!
    I wish I could fix it for you!! 🙏♥️

    ReplyDelete

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