A real update, for once.
Okay, so. Last Friday, I graduated GCC with an Associate's of Science. (It was good to see all the new graduates who were wearing ΦΘΚ symbols.) The time between then and now, I've spent in a brain-drained and sleep-deprived haze. Today, I'm still brain-drained and sleep-deprived, and I paid a visit to the allergenist.
The basic doctor's visit stuff was standard. The spirometer & blood oxygenation tests claimed that today I was asymptomatic for asthma, even though I've been having mild chest pain stuff* since this morning. Go figure.
The allergy panel involved having my arms and back jabbed with several sets of irritants, and then sitting still for 20min while the test locations developed. (The control location for histamine rapidly "developed" a silver-dollar-sized welt. I'm told that's only a moderate response.) It seems that while I'm not allergic to any of the standard set of foods, I am to just about everything else.
The everything else: Tree, weed & grass pollens, molds, dust mites, cat allergens, bird allergens. They didn't even test the dog set, since dog-ey stuff can give me an asthma attack under normal circumstances, and they didn't want to take the chance that I'd go into shock. (Having to treat someone for a systemic reaction means that they have to repeat all of the other tests, at a later date.)
Afterwards, they were surprisingly agressive at suppressing said allergic reactions. Immediate-relief skin cream, two different anti-allergy pills, and a shot of prednisone (which is not nice stuff, at all) saw me out the door. They'd also have given me a shot of benadryl, if not for the fact that it makes me too drowsy to drive.
* The sort that's typically relieved by use of an inhaler. I didn't today, because I didn't want to potentially dampen my responses to the allergy panel.
And now I'm home, and I need to catch some more sleep, if possible, to make me less zombified at work. Now's a good time to do that.
The basic doctor's visit stuff was standard. The spirometer & blood oxygenation tests claimed that today I was asymptomatic for asthma, even though I've been having mild chest pain stuff* since this morning. Go figure.
The allergy panel involved having my arms and back jabbed with several sets of irritants, and then sitting still for 20min while the test locations developed. (The control location for histamine rapidly "developed" a silver-dollar-sized welt. I'm told that's only a moderate response.) It seems that while I'm not allergic to any of the standard set of foods, I am to just about everything else.
The everything else: Tree, weed & grass pollens, molds, dust mites, cat allergens, bird allergens. They didn't even test the dog set, since dog-ey stuff can give me an asthma attack under normal circumstances, and they didn't want to take the chance that I'd go into shock. (Having to treat someone for a systemic reaction means that they have to repeat all of the other tests, at a later date.)
Afterwards, they were surprisingly agressive at suppressing said allergic reactions. Immediate-relief skin cream, two different anti-allergy pills, and a shot of prednisone (which is not nice stuff, at all) saw me out the door. They'd also have given me a shot of benadryl, if not for the fact that it makes me too drowsy to drive.
* The sort that's typically relieved by use of an inhaler. I didn't today, because I didn't want to potentially dampen my responses to the allergy panel.
And now I'm home, and I need to catch some more sleep, if possible, to make me less zombified at work. Now's a good time to do that.