Shootin' Up.

Ha ha.  Made you wonder, right?  :)

So, this summer I STRUGGLED with crazy allergy issues--worse than I have in a long, long time.  My eyes were all swollen and peeling and weird--I literally couldn't wear make-up for more than 3 months.  And this was right in the middle of marathon wedding season.  No fun, really.

So I went to the doctor.  And he was worthless.  So then I went to the allergist and they decided to do a bunch of allergy testing--oh, man.  Have you ever had allergy testing done before?  NO FUN.  They poke you with 40+ different kinds of things that you might be allergic to (called a scritch test)--after making you go for 3 days with no allergy medicine.  So (if you're like me) you go in feeling kind of crappy, anyway, because your allergies are raging out of control with no medication in your system to curb them, and then they poke you with likely allergens and make you wait around to see if you die...I mean, react...or not.  Sounds fun, huh?

I should have had them write down my allergens, because I totally don't remember them, but the things I massively reacted to were blue grass and wheat grass and rye grass (2 of those 3...can't remember), which apparently are the 2 types of grass in the majority of people's lawns.  Awesome.  No wonder whenever I sit down on the grass I break out in hives.  No wonder I felt like complete crap at Creation Fest this summer, when you are camping, sleeping, sitting, and living in the grass for a week with no place to escape.  I'm also allergic to alfalfa (duh...that would explain my extreme allergy to hay), some weird type of mold found in composting (good thing I'm not THAT environmentally conscious, eh?!), and a bunch of weeds, including mugwort, which we'll come back to in a moment.

I told them I know I'm allergic to nuts and have been since I was a little kid.  Since I know I react to them, they wouldn't test my skin and risk a reaction.  (Wait...didn't we just poke me 40 times hoping to GET a reaction?  Okay....)  So I had to go get blood drawn at a different lab so they could send it in and test it while I waited a week for the results.  The awesome part of the whole day was how they check you after like 10 minutes to see what you react to, so some of them popped up in big hives right away and I'm obviously allergic to those.  What they missed were the ones (all but about 3 or 4 out of 40+) that continued to swell bigger and bigger for about an hour after I left.  So who knows if they really determined all the things I'm actually allergic to or not?

A week later, they called with the results of my nut test:  negative.  WHAT?!?!  Apparently my blood tests came back negative for allergic reactions to any nuts.  This is NUTS!!  If I'm not allergic, then why do they make me die?  (Almost literally.)  Hmmm?  Well, the nurse explained to me that the blood test results don't really mean anything (then why did I get blood drawn???  Do you see how this whole process is SO confusing?), and asked me to come back so they could poke me again, this time with nuts.  

Here we go again.  This time I got about 12 pokes instead of 40, but still, not that enjoyable.  Apparently I'm pretty significantly allergic to walnuts, pecans, and brazilnuts (I think).  They wouldn't test my skin for almond, because I know if I have shampoo or anything with almond in it, I get hives.  So they just decided to avoid that one.  But at the same time, they tested my skin for peanuts, even though my peanut reactions threaten hospital visits.  (WHAT THE HECK?!?  So, they'll test me for the thing that kills me, but heaven forbid we risk me getting hives...which is the point of this test anyway...to see which allergens cause hives...)  And guess what.  I barely react to peanuts at all in the skin test.  WHAT?  How does that work?  Well, here's the funny thing...I told her I'm also allergic to raw celery, and so she got to thinking, and she looked them up and found out that peanuts and celery are BOTH listed as cross-reactions to guess what--MUGWORT.  Remember how I said we'd get back to that?  Well, apparently I'm massively allergic to mugwort, which somehow also could be causing my peanut and celery allergies.  I totally don't get it, but that's okay.  And interestingly, kiwi is also a cross-reaction with mugwort, and my sister is SUPER allergic to kiwi.

And since we were talking about family allergies, my mom and sister both test as being allergic to the type of latex in intubation tubes (good to know in case you're ever unconscious and need to be intubated or going in for major surgery!), and being allergic to kiwi and/or bananas are also indicators for that particular latex allergy.  Apparently testing for latex requires another blood test (no thanks) and they don't have a poke test for kiwi, but they do have one for bananas.  And lo and behold, turns out I'm somewhat allergic to bananas--I actually show that I'm MORE allergic to bananas than peanuts in the skin test.  Interesting.

So, to wrap up a long story and get back to the title of this post (sorry guys...some of my medically minded friends are actually interested in this kind of stuff!!  If you couldn't care less, sorry you've read this far already!  You can stop reading now...it won't get better) they decided I should get allergy shots.

Do you know what allergy shots are?  Basically they take all the things they know you're allergic to, mix them all together in a serum, and SHOOT THEM INTO YOUR ARM.  Supposedly this is a good idea.  The thought is, they give you a little bit at a time and teach your body to stop caring about the allergens by building up a tolerance and hopefully helping you get over these allergies.  Food allergies don't work this way, but for all the other stuff, that's what they do.  They start with a little bit, then up your dosage a little each time until you get over it.

So the first week they just give you a little bit.  You get a shot every week for 6 weeks, then every other week for 6 times, then once a month for a year.  And then you're done.  They started me on shots the same day as my second scritch test and made me wait around for 20 minutes "to make sure you don't sparkle and shine for us."  I was totally fine.  By the end of the evening, my arm was itchy and I had a hive that was hot and about 2 inches in diameter, but it was fine.  So when I went for my second shot, she asked me how it went, and I told her.  She said they shouldn't itch, so she made me wait for 20 minutes afterwards to see if I'd react.  Nothing.  I didn't react at all the second time around.  That meant that for number 3, I didn't have to hang around and wait, so I went right before my first day of work at my new job.  (Smart, right?)  I got that one in my right arm (the first 2 were in my left), and it was fine for awhile, just a little bit itchy and hot.  The next morning when I woke up, my whole arm ached like crazy, but I thought I just slept on it wrong and didn't relate it to the shot (duh).  So yesterday was round 4.  I didn't wait around, but by the end of the day, I had a huge, red, swollen, itchy hive on my arm about 5 inches long and 3 inches wide--basically the whole back of my arm.  And then this morning when I woke up, my arm was KILLING me!!  All day it has ached from my shoulder to my wrist.  I don't think this is uncommon, actually, but I'm not too sure what to tell the nurse next week.  The thing is, even if she makes me wait 20 minutes, I know that the reaction doesn't totally show up until hours later--if I get my shot first thing in the morning, the reaction on my arm is the worst right before I go to bed.  20 minutes isn't going to tell them anything.  

My parents say that this achey arm thing is totally normal (they've both had allergy shots before), and that having my arm hurt like crazy for one day a week (and itch for another) will be worth it when I can sit on the grass and not get hives, etc.  I'm trying to believe that, but seriously...my arm is killing me.  It better be a HECK of a lot better when I wake up tomorrow!!  2 more shots before I get to go to every other week.  That's a bright side, right?  

So, does anyone know anything about allergies and allergy shots?  Has anyone ever had them before?  Is this stuff "normal," or should I be worried about my itchy, achey, swollen arm?  If you know anything about this stuff, let me know!  In the meantime, these shots better work, or I want my money back!!  :)  (Just kidding.)