Allergies, Chrons and Excitement
I recently saw an allergist and got tested for allergies again. The results were a little surprising. Turns out my worst allergy is dust mites. Not dust mind you, just the little critters (really little, you need an electron microscope to see them) that like to hang out in it. How allergic to them am I you ask? Well the doctor said I am one of the two percent of people who fall off the scale that they use. Its a logarithmic scale. Fun stuff.
The good news is that everything else I am allergic to is not nearly as bad as the dust mites. After "off the scale" comes "severe", and I had no severe allergies. After that came, rated "Strong", is cats. I always thought I am more allergic to dogs than cats, but this is not the case. I am an order of magnitude more allergic to cats than I am dogs. Also rated strong is my ragweed allergy. Another order of magnitude lower, rated "moderate", I am allergic to dogs and every pollen known to mankind. Bringing up the bottom at "mild" is mold and cedars.
I wasn't tested for food allergies, just environmental allergies. We all know what happens when I eat tree nuts.
Anyway, in the 5 or 6 years since I've seen an allergist things have changed. What used to take up to a year to achieve with the type of allergy shots I used to get can now be done in as little as five weeks. Which is nice, since grass pollen peaks in late June here. Also dust mites are year round, so the sooner I'm resistant to those guys the better.
So yeah, I'm glad my insurance covered that visit as well as the shots I'll be getting back on. It was really informative. I liked the doctor and the office, very friendly and very professional. Which is good since I pretty much guessed. There was like three places I could choose from and I didn't want to wait, so I just picked one. My car was covered in pollen and I was mad at myself for not seeing an allergist back in February.
The only disappointing thing to come out of this is my discovery that Allegra-D has gone over the counter, like last week. Literally. I was hoping to get a prescription because it was covered by my insurance and because I could pay my portion with my HSA plan. Except now its over the counter which means I have to buy it out of my pocket, because the imbeciles in DC decided that you can't over the counter medications with your HSA. Mar! This stuff is expensive, its like a buck a pill and I take it twice a day, every day. I usually notice that I missed my last dose within an hour or two of being overdue.
*Sigh* Zertec-D and Allegra-D are the only two meds that work for me, now that they are both over the counter I guess I just have to suck it up and be grateful allergies are at least easy enough to deal with. As opposed to like lyme disease or chronic fatigue syndrome or something.
I'm starting to really doubt that I actually have Chrons. My GI doc took me off of the medicine I've been on, and I've not felt any worse. If anything I've felt slightly better, though that could be because I'm slowly moving toward a paleo diet. This doctor hasn't been able to find anything definitive, the scopes and blood tests I've had have all come back negative. The last step would be to have a pill endoscopy, but my insurance is fighting it. Honestly though, I'm at the point where I kinda just want to wash my hands of the thing and just try harder to get on this paleo diet. I've stopped putting milk on my breakfast cereal, and I noticed a marked improvement. This whole thing could just be because I've been a terrible eater for as long as I've eaten things.
I've made a few paleo meals that I thought turned out really well. One was a beef and veggies stir-fry. It was actually really good, and there was a lot of it. I still have some actually, I'll probably finish it for dinner tomorrow. Learned a lesson about recipes though. If the recipe calls for five types of peppers, its probably a little spicy. Just a little. Also did you know that red, green and yellow bell peppers are ALL THE SAME THING!?! They are just at different stages of ripeness! What the heck bell peppers? The bell pepper industry must the most profitable thing ever. Buy one plant, sell three products. Two of which if they stay in inventory too long just turn into another product.
"Hey, boss, these are labeled as green peppers but they are clearly yellow, what should I do?"
"Actually, those are just expired green peppers, mark them as yellow and push the expiration date back a week."
After I open my organic gas station, I'll invest my millions in the pepper industry.
Well I hope you've enjoyed reading about my health. The visit to the allergist is the most exciting thing that's happened in my life lately. Well except for Amelia accepting a job offer from KBSI.
SHE'S COMING TO TEXAS!!!!
Yeah, I'm just a little excited about that.
The good news is that everything else I am allergic to is not nearly as bad as the dust mites. After "off the scale" comes "severe", and I had no severe allergies. After that came, rated "Strong", is cats. I always thought I am more allergic to dogs than cats, but this is not the case. I am an order of magnitude more allergic to cats than I am dogs. Also rated strong is my ragweed allergy. Another order of magnitude lower, rated "moderate", I am allergic to dogs and every pollen known to mankind. Bringing up the bottom at "mild" is mold and cedars.
I wasn't tested for food allergies, just environmental allergies. We all know what happens when I eat tree nuts.
Anyway, in the 5 or 6 years since I've seen an allergist things have changed. What used to take up to a year to achieve with the type of allergy shots I used to get can now be done in as little as five weeks. Which is nice, since grass pollen peaks in late June here. Also dust mites are year round, so the sooner I'm resistant to those guys the better.
So yeah, I'm glad my insurance covered that visit as well as the shots I'll be getting back on. It was really informative. I liked the doctor and the office, very friendly and very professional. Which is good since I pretty much guessed. There was like three places I could choose from and I didn't want to wait, so I just picked one. My car was covered in pollen and I was mad at myself for not seeing an allergist back in February.
The only disappointing thing to come out of this is my discovery that Allegra-D has gone over the counter, like last week. Literally. I was hoping to get a prescription because it was covered by my insurance and because I could pay my portion with my HSA plan. Except now its over the counter which means I have to buy it out of my pocket, because the imbeciles in DC decided that you can't over the counter medications with your HSA. Mar! This stuff is expensive, its like a buck a pill and I take it twice a day, every day. I usually notice that I missed my last dose within an hour or two of being overdue.
*Sigh* Zertec-D and Allegra-D are the only two meds that work for me, now that they are both over the counter I guess I just have to suck it up and be grateful allergies are at least easy enough to deal with. As opposed to like lyme disease or chronic fatigue syndrome or something.
I'm starting to really doubt that I actually have Chrons. My GI doc took me off of the medicine I've been on, and I've not felt any worse. If anything I've felt slightly better, though that could be because I'm slowly moving toward a paleo diet. This doctor hasn't been able to find anything definitive, the scopes and blood tests I've had have all come back negative. The last step would be to have a pill endoscopy, but my insurance is fighting it. Honestly though, I'm at the point where I kinda just want to wash my hands of the thing and just try harder to get on this paleo diet. I've stopped putting milk on my breakfast cereal, and I noticed a marked improvement. This whole thing could just be because I've been a terrible eater for as long as I've eaten things.
I've made a few paleo meals that I thought turned out really well. One was a beef and veggies stir-fry. It was actually really good, and there was a lot of it. I still have some actually, I'll probably finish it for dinner tomorrow. Learned a lesson about recipes though. If the recipe calls for five types of peppers, its probably a little spicy. Just a little. Also did you know that red, green and yellow bell peppers are ALL THE SAME THING!?! They are just at different stages of ripeness! What the heck bell peppers? The bell pepper industry must the most profitable thing ever. Buy one plant, sell three products. Two of which if they stay in inventory too long just turn into another product.
"Hey, boss, these are labeled as green peppers but they are clearly yellow, what should I do?"
"Actually, those are just expired green peppers, mark them as yellow and push the expiration date back a week."
After I open my organic gas station, I'll invest my millions in the pepper industry.
Well I hope you've enjoyed reading about my health. The visit to the allergist is the most exciting thing that's happened in my life lately. Well except for Amelia accepting a job offer from KBSI.
SHE'S COMING TO TEXAS!!!!
Yeah, I'm just a little excited about that.