Yes, I’m much better now. I managed to convince the pain management clinic that I’m not a junkie who took all her pills early, so I got a new RX for MS Contin and Robaxin. I figure it’ll take me a few days to get past the flare, but I already feel better and know that I’ll continue to improve.
I had the allergy tests today, too. I reacted to every allergen for which they tested me, so much so that all the weals just ran together into a big, red, swollen (and particularly unattractive) mass on my back and arm. The ones on the arm, in fact, nearly connected to the ones on my back. Lovely. So I got a shot of antihistamine in addition to being slathered with steroid cream, and everybody came to look at the oddity. Thank you. That kind of attention I do not need.
I’d taken the stuff from my previous skin tests back around, um, 1997 or 98. I’m allergic to more things now, including cat AND dog dander. Whee!
The venom test (for beestings) will be done next month.
I left there with lots of information and orders about putting allergen barriers everywhere, keeping animals out of the bedrooms, not grooming the critters myself, having all of them bathed and brushed at least weekly, and wearing a mask and gloves if I really must garden (molds in the dirt, you know).
I figure that if we comb the cats regularly and wipe them down with some of the tannin-based anti-dander stuff weekly that should be as efficacious and less dangerous than trying to bathe them.
I’m wondering just how well the multitude of anti-allergen upholstery, carpet, and laundry treatments work. I mean, do they actually help enough to justify their cost? As much as I like to make our home a healthy haven, I’m not certain that our lives would really improve that much by buying and using all this stuff. And it would have to be everywhere, because Katie’s every bit as allergic to the world as I am, and Sam was pre-allergy-shots (in childhood).
Oh—I have my very own peak flow meter, too. I’m supposed to use it once or twice a day and record the results on a photocopied graph that’s been reduced to utter illegibility.
And early this morning, I went in for blood tests that required fasting, so I couldn’t even prepare for this day of medical attention by having a comfort food breakfast at home.
On the happy side, that first visit did result in the referral to an ENT (ear-nose-throat specialist) that my chiropractor has been going on about for so long.
I did have time to read all of one book (Tanya Huff’s latest, Smoke and Shadows) and more than half of another (Charles de Lint’s Mulengro). Both were good. Both were pretty dark. Oh—I’ve also been reading Tony Buzan’s Mind Map betwixt and between, but it’s much slower going. Non-fiction always is for me, as I worry more about absorbing it. Well-written fiction is more holistic or something.
Overall a good, if tiring, day. I’m trying to find a comfy way to sit that doesn’t require contact with anything on my back or arm and it seems impossible.
