Monday, August 16, 2010

How My Allergies Started

My allergies started when I was 13.  Before that, I never had any allergies that I knew about, no-one in my immediate family had allergies, and in the rest of my family, only one aunt had hay fever and it was always very mild. 

I was a pretty popular and athletic kid growing up.  I had lots of friends, everyone wanted to hang out with me and I played soccer, volleyball, and I swam.  I also sang in choir and solo.  I think I was generally a nice person, although I did tend to be a little self-centered and catty.  I don't think any more-so than most girls my age.  I am an only child, both my parents are together, and I had a pretty good childhood.  My parents were generally good to me.  My dad worked as a factory supervisor.  My mom worked on and off as an administrative assistant once I got to be about 10 or so.  I had 2 cats I totally loved, I called Ruff and Tumble (they were brother and sister).

In the spring when I was 13 I seemed to get alot of colds.  I would have sneezing and sniffling for a few days, then it would go away for a few days, then come back, etc.  By the beginning of the summer it wasn't going away.  My parents brought me to my doctor and he thought it was allergies.  He sent me to an allergist and I tested positive for some pollens and slightly positive for cats and dogs.  They gave me an antihistamine and some pointers on avoiding pollen and stuff.  I really loved my cats and since I only had a mild allergy to them, we figured it would be ok to try keeping them. 

Through the summer and fall, the meds seemed to work ok.  I was still pretty sniffly and my nose would itch some and I would sneeze some each day, but not too bad.  Winter was a bit better.  During that time, I pretty much went about life as usual.  In the mornings I would sneeze a bit and have to blow my nose.  Other than that, it didn't have much of an impact.  I did get poked fun at a bit for being so sniffly, but it wasn't a big deal.

Things really started to change after the winter.  Where I lived, spring (and tree pollen) often comes early in the year.  I didn't follow all the recommendations of my doctor that well.  I did take my meds pretty much when I should but I did things like leave windows open since we didn't have AC and sometimes let my cats in my room.  Near the end of Feb, one day I woke up feeling pretty miserable.  I woke sneezing and I felt some congestion in my nose and sinuses and I was very runny.  My eyes and nose itched really badly too.  After feeling pretty awful for a few days, I went back to my allergist and he gave me more meds, told me to watch out for pollen, told me about pollen counts and talked about how some years for pollen is worse than others, and information like that. 

Through that spring, my allergies would fluctuate back and forth between being worse like that and better like they used to be.  I noticed they were starting to affect my life.  Sometimes it was harder to focus playing sports, I noticed some places would affect my allergies more than others, sometimes when I was congested my voice wouldn't sound as good when singing, and some of my friends were making fun of my allergies and some were getting kind of annoyed at me for some reason.  I was pretty self-conscious about it, so I tried to run off to the bathroom when I could and also tried to downplay my allergies as much as possible.

Next post I will pick up where I left off here.

3 comments:

  1. *hugs* When my allergies started off people called me "sneezyhead". It really made it harder on me. It's good to let out your frustrations about how it makes you feel.

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  2. Hi Kate just wanted to say nice reading so far *hugs*

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  3. Hi, TY for starting the blog. If anyone bothers you, let me know. Like one friend of yours, i know where they came from, and can help put a stop to it :)

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