Allergy Testing

I have been coughing since the first week of September. That's almost 8 months people. 

First, we all got Whooping Cough right before Sam was born...with most of the Graham Family visiting... That was fun. Perussis in known as the "100 day cough" so I felt like I was pretty much done with it around Christmas time.

Then the mountain ceder bloomed in San Antonio and it hit all of us hard. But after a couple weeks everyone else was moving on...and I was still coughing.  

Then I got the flu.

         Then I got bronchitis.  

                     I'm. Still. Coughing.

There are nights when I feel so bad for Sam and Lee that I will try and sleep downstairs on the couch. I was coughing so much and so hard that I sometimes resorted to taking half of a norco pill (which has the happy side effect of being a great cough suppressant). I was wheezing and rattling like a baby toy. 

So my Dr. put me on allergy meds, a nasal spray, antibiotics, and an inhaler. LOL! Then she sent me to an allergy specialist. 

After the initial consultation, Dr. Gordana Gligoric (awesome name huh? she still had a very heavy russian accent!) had me come back for the skin test. Now, whenever I had heard of or envisioned this skin test or scratch test, I imagined the Dr. annointing the patient with solutions of a few different allergens...perhaps involving a slight scratch to irritate the skin. 

Boy was I wrong!

Sure enough, I am allergic to a {few} things. Dr. said my back looked "sceery".

She poked me - HARD - with these little plastic toothpick things that were dipped into the allergens. Yes, she drew blood.

Yes, she did it 88 times.

And Yes, I jumped every time. 

Then, just to be thorough, she noted the ones that I didn't react to on my back and injected the solutions sub-dermally with needles on my arm. 

Honestly though, I would take the needles again over the plastic tooth picks any time.