Monday Afternoon Ritual

Monday usually means a trip to the allergist's office for a double dose of serum. I'm somewhat new to the allergy shot subgroup. I started with my immunotherapy about a year ago after suffering from seasonal allergies for most of my life. Unlike many things my allergies did not get better with age, they got much, much worse.

When I was a kid back in the 70s I suffered through most summers without the benefit of air conditioning. I would lay in bed each night rubbing my itchy eyes until I wanted to just yank those irritated eyeballs right out of their sockets. A wet washcloth provided just enough relief to get me to sleep. Back then there weren't a host of fancy allergy medicines, just a few over the counter things that usually just knocked me out.

It took a good year and a half of seasonal sinus infections and bouts of dizziness for me to finally find out what exactly I'm allergic to. Allergy testing is not for aichmophobics. The testing itself consists of an initial 48 pinpricks to the skin. Once the pinpricks are finished a small portion of 48 different allergens are dropped onto the skin, the idea being that if one is allergic to that specific thing the skin will swell a bit with a hive of some sort. The initial pinpricks showed I was allergic to 4 or 5 different things. It was interesting to watch my skin as hives showed themselves. I was excited to finally find out what exactly was causing all that sneezing and itchy in the spring and fall.

Once the pinprick test was finished, just to be thorough, the allergens that did not show negative responses the first time were injected into my skin. I think I counted somewhere around 64 shots that made their way into my forearms.

The information from the tests made sense. Ragweed was the culprit behind my yearly fall sinus infections and laryngitis. Grass pollen was the reason for a springtime of itchy eyes and sneezing fits. And then there's the dust mite thing. They're with me all year round, but I do what I can to keep them at bay.

It's been just about a year since the shots started. I'm starting to see some improvement, although during the fall I still had problems with sinus headaches and dizziness. At this point I'm hopeful the plan will work. Bring on the grass pollen. I might even open the windows a bit this spring!