felis_ultharus | (no subject)

So last Thursday I had what could only be called an accidental allergy test. I call it accidental, because the-CLSC-doctor-who-couldn't-get-anything-right wrote me a referral for the guy thinking he was a dermatologist.

I know have a complete list of what I'm allergic to, and I was right about most of the things I'd guessed. But my most severe allergy is to dust mites, which means I'm going to have to keep this house as dust-free as possible.

Much more disturbing is that I have a mild cat-fur allergy. I'm getting prescription medication for this one.

montrealais says this explains why cats like me so much.

These two allergies probably explain a lot. I've felt like I've had a permanent head cold the last two or three years, which I just chalked up to work-and-school fatigue.

Anyway, the allergist was also crazy -- there are plenty of sane doctors around, but I never seem to get them -- but his nurse performed the test, so I trust it. And I now have a referral for a real dermatologist.

In other news, NaNiWriMo is over, and I seemed to write much less, not more than my usual output. 50,000 words is about average for me, but this month I only managed 16,000 on the non-novel (not counting jettisoned earlier versions).

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That actually sounds like this guy -- that's why I said that I trusted the test because it was performed by his nurse.

She was very by-the-book and seemed to know what she was doing. She explained how it all worked, and told me in advance what the bumps appearing on my arm would mean (because my arm swelled wherever there would be a reaction). I could see for myself the results.

My allergist, however, was what Douglas Coupland once called "a Bleeding Ponytail" -- an ex-hippie who'd kept the paraphrenalia, the disorganization, and the obnoxiousness, but jettisoned the high ideals. He seemed to think that Tai Chi might help my acne when I turned the subject to dermatology, and (looking at his giant pictures of a smiling guru) suggested a vegetarian diet and a few very New Agey books.

(Not trying to mock alternative medecine -- I know some people who've had good results with it. I've just never been one of them.)

...just so you know, that skin test is bunk. A plethora of things produce reddening and bumps when applied to or injected under the skin. Just about the only thing that doesn't is distilled water. You might check www.quackwatch.com to see if they've got anything on the specific procedure performed, just in case.

To the best of my knowledge, the only way you can really, medically tell if you're allergic to something is to not go near it and see if you feel better. If you do, either you're allergic to it, or you're deluding yourself. The only real known 'cure' for allergies is to not go near it for the rest of your life. (You don't see hospitals giving 'anti-allergy vaccines' to people who go into anaphylactic shock after bee stings, do you? Thought not. They give you a metric shitload of antihistamines and ephedrine, and possibly intubate you, and tell you not to go near bees anymore.) Happy hunting.