Allergies suck

I've got allergies. Pretty bad allergies compared to much of the population, although nothing compared to some members of my family. I am constantly a bit congested and stuffed up: I would estimate that I can breathe through both of my nostrils at the same time for maybe one hour total every year. Fortunately, I'm not generally too sneezy or runny, although numerous people can tell stories of me laying on the couch with tissue stuffed up my nose to make the occasional hay-fever outbreak stop.

Given all of this, I was happy to find that my insurance would cover allergy treatments and about a year ago I headed off to see the doctor. The allergist administered a skin-prick test where they prick your arms with about 36 different allergens so see what you are allergic to. Given my reactions, the doctor stated that I "am one of their most allergic patients," and this is a big clinic! So from there the shots began. Every five days I head to the clinic and get three shots in the upper arms for all the tree and grass pollens, dust mites, cats, and some other things that I reacted to on the skin-prick test. I then have to hang out for 30 minutes to make sure there is no major reaction before I am allowed to leave. The shots are full of whatever you are allergic to and with each session the concentration is slowly increased so that your body builds a tolerance to the allergins. Shots are administed every five to ten days - if you go longer than ten days, you have to repeat the dose from the last session. This continues for about a year, then you move to monthly shots for another two years or so. A pain, but if it helps at all, it will be worth it.

About six weeks ago I went in, got my shots, then headed home. An hour after I got home, things weren't going so well though and I was getting very wheezy, coughing a lot, my lips were swelling, and I was having problems breathing. I headed back to the clinic where they loaded me up with epinephrine (synthetic adrenalin), albuterol, and prednisone and monitored me for a couple of hours. The drugs took care of the reaction pretty quickly, but left me jittery as all get out for a while, and then crashing hard later. The doctor could not give any reason for my reaction, other than that "they sometimes just happen" and that maybe my immune system was down. As it turned out, I came down with a nasty cold a day or two later, so my immune system was likely overworked already and the allergens pushed it over the edge. Scary.

The big problem with having a reaction to the shots is that they set you back in the sequence: the doctors reduce your allergen concentrations and then start to rebuild. So after getting over my cold, I was eager to get back into the series, and keep building. All was going well, and I was up to more than double the concentration that caused the first reaction when today I had another reaction. Not cool. I was at work and could feel it coming on, so popped a couple of benedryl and had a coworker take me back to the clinic. I still haven't used my Epipen to self-administer epinephrine, but I came close today. Once again they loaded me up with epinephrine, monitored me, then sent me home when I was doing OK. Like last time, they did not have any explanation for why I had the reaction, although the RN treating me strongly suggested that I go to a seven or eight day shot cycle (rather than five) to allow my body to generate more antibodies between shots. If I can go every seven days with no reactions, I will actually get through the cycle faster than going every five days and having occasional set backs like these. Plus I won't have the scary sensation of my breathing slowly shutting down.

Needless to say, today's run didn't happen. Allergies suck.