Allergies

I'm so used to congestion and coughing that I barely notice, but man, people around me have noticed a lot in the past year.

"No, I don't have COVID. This is pretty much how I've sounded every day of the last 40 years, so unless I got a really early strain of the virus and it never went away..."

 

Did the skin prick thing on the back when I was a teenager. The section where they did grass all grew into one massive welt. They listed my allergies on a scale of 0 to 5 and every single type of grass was 5+. (Also, when he read the list of things I'm allergic to in alphabetical order "hemp" and "hops" were back to back. Fun times.) I was allergic to pretty much everything in my yard growing up. For foods it's peanuts, which is pretty normal, and rice, which is weird.

I used all kinds of medications until my doctor gave me Flonase. That stuff works miracles. Pollen counts have to be going crazy for me to have a reaction now.

When I lived in Eugene, in the spring I would frequently wake up in the morning with my eyes sealed shut because of the goop from my allergies. I would literally have to walk blind to the bathroom, find the sink, run water and splash it on my eyes until the crust loosened enough for me to open them.

Don't miss that.

 

When I was maybe six years old, I kept getting sinus infections and earaches. I was all the time going to the ENT, getting my sinuses packed with cotton soaked in medicine. They finally sent me for allergy testing. I was young, so they didn't do my back. I sat in one of the school chairs with one arm that you write on and they pricked my inner arm. I was allergic to two pages of stuff, to include grasses, pollens, milk, eggs, and chocolate and a multitude of random stuff. I got two allergy shots a week for two years, a shot a week for two years, and a shot a week for another year. By the time I'd done that for a year or so needles didn't scare me. I was rolling up my sleeve while patting my foot, like "C'mon, get on with it, I got places to go".

My poor mother had to figure out how to feed me. I got fed a brand called "Hillbilly Bread", a whole wheat bread made with water instead of milk. Bowls of cereal with water on it instead of milk, stuff like that. Canned goat's milk. (Ecccchhhhh).

The allergy extracts worked though. I have pollen issues this time of year, like virtually everyone else. Other than that I just roll on.

 

You should take allergy medicine year round if you have allergies.

 

Cat dander, oak pollen and juniper pollen. Didn’t know about that last one until I lived in central Oregon for a year.

Claritin once a day PRN.

 

Exposure is another important element of allergies. Sometimes allergies won't develop until you have prolonged and repeated exposure to an allergen. For me, that was cat dander. I tested positive for dogs when I was very young, but was always negative for cats. With that in mind, my wife and I got a cat when we moved in together. About a year later, we got another one. I think it was the second one that put me over the top. I was not feeling well for a while, so I went to the doctor. They did a new scratch test and cat dander came up positive.

Damn allergies.

 

I suffered for years with sinus crap. Then one day. I was in a store, grabbed a package of Zyrtec, took one pill, and was able to breathe fully for the first time in, like, 40 years.

So I take one Zyrtec every morning. I still have occasion times when it feels like there’s a band of phlegm in my lungs and I end up hacking it up so loudly my entire neighborhood can hear me.

 

Man, what is it about allergy doctors? I went to one - one spring 25 years ago, when I lived where I live again now, I couldn't go out to get the mail without sneezing and having a runny nose for an hour - and the dude was late, condescending, indecisive, unhelpful.

But he did give me a gift certificate for an ice cream cone at some worse-than-a-chain small outfit.

 

I've moved around a lot and I've been dealing with allergies since I was very young, so I've met quite a few allergy doctors. Most of them ranged from crappy to mediocre. The one I found when I moved to my current location 16 years ago, however, was outstanding. Good guy. Friendly. Bluntly honest. Never once rushed through an appointment. Only bad thing about the guy is that he retired a few years back. He was the one who confirmed my cat allergy. I had always tested negative for being allergic to cats, though I was allergic to dog dander. That is why my wife and I got a cat when we first moved in together. About a year later, we got a second one. Slowly, my allergies seemed to be getting worse. He suggested another scratch test and there it was, a strong reaction to cat dander. Apparently, the allergy to cats had never shown up in the past because I hadn't been around them very much.

I will never forget his advice and the way he put it. "You are an idiot if you don't get those animals out of your house." For a few months, I was an idiot, but eventually, we found a new home for our cats, someone who would keep them together. Fucking allergies suck.