Allergist and A Strike

My visit to the allergist was a bit of a bust. My seasonal allergies flared up last night, and try though I might to resist, I ended up giving in and taking a Benadryl. I had to. I couldn't stop sneezing, I couldn't breathe, and my nose was running like a faucet. I will have to go back and do the skin test next month.

However, the visit wasn't a total bust, as we talked about some things, and he is going to work with me to get my seasonal allergies under better control. He gave me some Allegra D and some Nasacort samples to see if they help, plus a perscription for refills of both. We also talked about my reactions to aspirin and ibuprofin. He said to take Tylenol only. When I talked about one of the symptoms being tightness in my chest, he said that that is real, and not to be trifled with. He is not even going to test me for that allergy because if I had a reaction, even to the test, it could be serious. We are going to go with the assumption that I'm allergic for now, especially since they symptoms came on suddenly. If I have some condition that doesn't respond to Tylenol alone, then we would figure something out.

When I go back next month, we will do a skin test for my egg allergy. He said when we were talking about it, I'd brought up a point that most people miss. I'd said that we (meaning my regular doctor and I) wanted to find out if it was an allergy or simply a digestion issue. The allergist said that most people come in there with a reaction to a food and assume it is an allergy, but there some enzyme deficiencies that can cause similar reactions. I told him that I was getting close to the age where I would want to start taking the flu shot, so I would need to know which one it was. That's basically the reason I was there. The good news is, if it were a digestion issue, maybe we could fix it and I could eat eggs again. However, given that when I get egg on my skin, if I don't wash it off quickly enough, it will break out in an itchy red spot, I'm pretty sure it is an allergy.

When I was in the Navy, I had to take the flu shot. I always got deathly ill from them. I was just assuming the shot was giving me the flu. Now that I know better, I'm thinking that just maybe, it wasn't the flu, but an allergic reaction.

Ok, so after I left the allergist's office--let me just add that everyone there was soooo nice and polite--I found the little yarn store I was talking about yesterday. It was a small shop, but really nice. Everyone there was friendly, and one lady was giving sock knitting lessons one on one with a customer. I kind of wanted to stay, but I really wanted to come on home and lay down. I did get a strike on my Stashalong, but only a small one. I limited myself to four balls of sock yarn, the Magic Loop booklet and a set of Addi Turbos circular needles.

Buuut, the caviat is, I have to finish my current pairs of socks before casting on another. I started the mate to the first sock I made, and also started a sock with the yarn I got for Christmas. Those were both on my list. I'd best get cracking...

P.S. Forgive any misspellings. Spell check doesn't seem to be working today.