Why yes! Yes I do...Big time!
I finally had my allergy skin test done today. It was torture for about an hour until I was given something to stop the itching. I got to talk to an allergist for a few minutes and then they took me in and poked me 45 times with different environmental allergens. The itching started by the time she finished. It was kind of cool to watch at first, and then it started getting uncomfortable. By the time my 20 minutes were up my arms were splotchy red and itched like crazy!!!! When I came back to the room the nurse asked me how I was doing and I told her, I felt like I had 45 mosquito bites all over my arm. She thought that was funny, I guess she hadn't heard that one before.
I took my camera to the appointment with me, and when I pulled it out to take the picture the battery was DEAD. I was so sad. Here is a picture from off the internet to give you an idea of what I kind of looked like.
My arms were much worse than this, and they put 3 rows of dots on each of my arms. My arms looked like the above picture about 2 hours AFTER the test was done, except they wiped off the marker.While she was measuring the size of the swelling and the redness for each spot, the allergist came in. He took one look at my arms and said, "Looks like you are allergic to just about everything!"
GREAT! That's just wonderful, but I figured that already.
This is what my arms looked like 3 1/2 hours
after the tests, also after two coats of anti-itch cream, and an allergy pill.
It doesn't itch as much any more, and the swelling is almost gone. It just looks like I have a bunch of old mosquito bites in perfect lines on my arms.
I was hoping that I would get a list of everything that I am allergic too, or at least the things I am more allergic to, but by the end I forgot to ask. From what I can remember, I am allergic to more than half the trees, all the grasses, all the pollen, and then the other random stuff was random if I was allergic too it. I did find out though that I am very allergic to cat hair (which I knew), but not to dogs (which completely surprised me) or dust mites (which I was wondering about), so it's all really good to know.
Now that I have not only told them that I have allergies, but I have proven it through the test, I can get more aggressive treatment. I am a candidate for allergy shots to get rid of them, but it requires a 3 year commitment, which is sometimes hard to give in the Army. Otherwise, I am now on 3 allergy medicines a day. Two pills and a spray. Here's hoping that it makes all the difference!
