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miss_lucy21No surprises in the allergy testing. I am still very reactive to Ragweed, most grasses, Sycamore trees and less reactive to most trees, dust mites, several varieties of mold, cats and dogs. The degree of reactiveness doesn't necessarily correlate to the severity of the reaction- I was more reactive to cats than I was to mold, but hanging out in a moldy basement will cause an asthma reaction, whereas living with a cat who likes to snuggle all up in my face just makes my eyes red and itchy and makes me itchy if he licks certain areas of my skin. But usually, there's a pretty reasonable correlation.
No food reactions- at least not to any of the 6 most common food allergy foods (eggs, cow's milk, beef, chicken, peanuts and shrimp. Hm. I would have thought wheat and soy would be on there as opposed to beef or chicken, but what do I know?). Since I don't have a history of food allergies, they only run the tests on the most common ones. But if any of those had reacted, they would have done confirmation testing and probably done another couple of food series (they can test for just about any type of food). So I can continue eating my peanut butter with abandon, which is excellent (I really didn't think that was going to be an issue. Peanut allergies are usually pretty dramatic and I eat stuff with peanuts in it daily, often multiple times a day- it's one of my main protein sources).
They have greatly streamlined the testing process since the last time I had this done (apparently in 2006, according to my chart). It's not as time consuming because they don't apply every substance individually (they only did the basic series on me, which involves all environmental allergies and the most common foods, so 56 substances). They do them in groups of 8, all at once, because they have devices now that can apply them that way. So, way less time consuming, although the application process is a little more intense. I'll take the higher intensity if it means less time, though. And the test time was less than I thought, too. I thought it was about 30-40 minutes before they read the sites, but it was only 15. Trust me, 15 is plenty enough time. I was reacting to the first set, which happened to include my most reactive items) before the nurse had even finished pulling off her gloves and putting everything away. It would have taken longer if they had needed to do confirmation testing, but none of my reactions were ambiguous, so I got away with just the 56.
So, I start allergy shots again next week. Fortunately, the shot room at my doctor's office is 1) open until 6pm two days a week, 2) at least one of those days is a day where I don't have after-work commitments and 3) the doctor's office is only a few miles down the road from my office (it will still take me about 20 minutes to get there during rush hour, but that's still not bad at all. And it's in the right direction towards home, which is also very helpful). Once I get to the maintenance level, it's possible they'll let my mom give me the shots (Mom is a registered nurse, as well as having been the parent of a child with asthma since 1984. She's perfectly capable of both administering the shot and monitoring the reaction).
The two Benedryl I popped as soon as I got home are kicking in now. I'm starting to feel better (I also gave my back a good spray with the cortizone spray- they use your back for the testing, probably because it's harder to flay your skin off while you're waiting. Well, okay, actually, it's probably more because it's enough real-estate to get them all in and it's relatively flat, although I've had them done on my arms before. I did not like the time they did the main series on my arms. Every single pinprick shows up on my skin and I looked like a really inept junkie for several days after the hives went down. Confirmation on the arms is more common and not quite so bad). But I am also starting to get really sleepy, so I am going to go curl up in bed and pass out for awhile.
No food reactions- at least not to any of the 6 most common food allergy foods (eggs, cow's milk, beef, chicken, peanuts and shrimp. Hm. I would have thought wheat and soy would be on there as opposed to beef or chicken, but what do I know?). Since I don't have a history of food allergies, they only run the tests on the most common ones. But if any of those had reacted, they would have done confirmation testing and probably done another couple of food series (they can test for just about any type of food). So I can continue eating my peanut butter with abandon, which is excellent (I really didn't think that was going to be an issue. Peanut allergies are usually pretty dramatic and I eat stuff with peanuts in it daily, often multiple times a day- it's one of my main protein sources).
They have greatly streamlined the testing process since the last time I had this done (apparently in 2006, according to my chart). It's not as time consuming because they don't apply every substance individually (they only did the basic series on me, which involves all environmental allergies and the most common foods, so 56 substances). They do them in groups of 8, all at once, because they have devices now that can apply them that way. So, way less time consuming, although the application process is a little more intense. I'll take the higher intensity if it means less time, though. And the test time was less than I thought, too. I thought it was about 30-40 minutes before they read the sites, but it was only 15. Trust me, 15 is plenty enough time. I was reacting to the first set, which happened to include my most reactive items) before the nurse had even finished pulling off her gloves and putting everything away. It would have taken longer if they had needed to do confirmation testing, but none of my reactions were ambiguous, so I got away with just the 56.
So, I start allergy shots again next week. Fortunately, the shot room at my doctor's office is 1) open until 6pm two days a week, 2) at least one of those days is a day where I don't have after-work commitments and 3) the doctor's office is only a few miles down the road from my office (it will still take me about 20 minutes to get there during rush hour, but that's still not bad at all. And it's in the right direction towards home, which is also very helpful). Once I get to the maintenance level, it's possible they'll let my mom give me the shots (Mom is a registered nurse, as well as having been the parent of a child with asthma since 1984. She's perfectly capable of both administering the shot and monitoring the reaction).
The two Benedryl I popped as soon as I got home are kicking in now. I'm starting to feel better (I also gave my back a good spray with the cortizone spray- they use your back for the testing, probably because it's harder to flay your skin off while you're waiting. Well, okay, actually, it's probably more because it's enough real-estate to get them all in and it's relatively flat, although I've had them done on my arms before. I did not like the time they did the main series on my arms. Every single pinprick shows up on my skin and I looked like a really inept junkie for several days after the hives went down. Confirmation on the arms is more common and not quite so bad). But I am also starting to get really sleepy, so I am going to go curl up in bed and pass out for awhile.