Coping With Allergies
Like so many of us, some of my favorite memories growing up involved the Christmas holidays. My mom always had an assortment of nuts set out for visitors, and my siblings and I were permitted to indulge in our share of the treats, too. I remember well, that all of those tree nuts still had the shells intact, and part of the joy was using the nutcracker to open the shell and relish the tasty nut inside.
Sadly, those delicious treats led to some undesirable consequences, time and time again. Usually within a half hour of my self-indulgence, I invariably became nauseous and ended up barfing. My parents chalked up the experience to excitement around the holidays, never thinking that I may have been having an allergic reaction to those tree nuts.
Their ignorance may have proved beneficial, however, because today I can consume tree nuts without so much as having the slightest reaction. Is it possible that by allowing me to totally get sick to the point of vomiting violently, it eventually desensitized me to the chemical makeup of the nuts? If so, kudos to Mom and Dad! Their error was a blessing in disguise.
Repeated exposure doesn't always work
I was fortunate to grow up with a large extended family. My mother's family alone was comprised of seven sisters. Yes, seven. They couldn't resist plastering me in my youth with hugs and kisses every time they saw me. I remember trying to avoid them each and every time we crossed paths, and I would get a royal chewing-out from mom if I even thought about running away or hiding in another room while they visited.
In retrospect, the problem was not that I had a disdain for my relatives. I just couldn't breathe. I have no idea what kind or what volume of perfume those loving ladies used, but for me, taking a breath was impossible when I got close to them. I felt like I was suffocating. I also got an immediate and long-lasting headache following a one-second encounter with any of them. Obviously, neither my parents nor I had the foggiest idea that I was allergic to the chemical compounds in the perfume. [A side note: My dad was one of six brothers in his family, but as far as I knew, none of them wore perfume.]
This continued into my years as a teacher, too. Many times, I opened the door to the faculty room only to turn around and make a quick exit before I got light-headed, disoriented or passed out. One particular lady's payload of fragrance stood out more than the others. I made sure, during any conversations with her, that I kept some distance between us. And fortunately, she never realized that I was forever hoping to minimize any direct contact with her.
To this day, I still cannot walk down the perfume aisle in a department store where women seem unable to resist spraying the perfume into the air to determine if they like the fragrance. If I catch myself in such a saturated situation of contaminated air, I bolt out of the aisle like a world-class sprinter.
I imagine that on-lookers might enjoy seeing an old guy, with bad knees and a limp, breaking world-record time in Walmart. And I know that somewhere today, there is a person witnessing such an event on a security camera video. I can just hear him as he proclaims, "Hey, Ralph - come over and take a look at this old guy. You won't believe it."
And sometimes the allergies appear later in adulthood
As a kid, I spent my summers playing outdoors in the fields and woods surrounding my home. I usually wore shorts and never once contracted so much as an itch from my excursions. Of course, I heard of poison ivy and poison sumac, but I never experienced a reaction to them.
Imagine my surprise, then, while fishing one day in my forties, when my hands and forearms turned bright red and blistered from some plant with which I inadvertently came in contact. I tried all the over-the-counter remedies I could find. None of them worked. Eventually the symptoms ran their course, but it did take a long while. And from that day on, I made sure I wore long sleeved attire regardless of the air temperature.
A few years later, I was cutting firewood at my fishing cabin. I noticed that some kind of vine was entwined within and wrapped around the limbs of the dead tree that I was cutting down. Because I wasn't wearing work gloves, my bare hands obviously came into contact with the vine. ( It's important to note here that I'm not always known for thinking ahead.) Suddenly getting the urge, I placed the chainsaw on the ground, and proceeded off into the deeper brush to answer nature's call. Well, whatever the chemical compound was in that vine, it was easily (and unfortunately) transferred from my hands to my frontal private area.
By the time I was ready to head home, I was not only itching for some kind of salve or medication, but I was in pain and rather swollen, too. So, I stopped by the local pharmacy where I asked to speak to the male pharmacist privately. Luckily, he steered me in the right direction. Once I got home and took a shower, I applied his recommended treatment. It did offer me some immediate relief, though he had also cautioned me that the medication may work slowly.
He was correct, as his choice in salve took a week or so to make any noticeable change. And in the meantime, I actually contemplated trying out for a starring role in the adult entertainment industry. Unfortunately, before I could book a flight to Hollywood, my situation returned to normal.
By Dave Potchak, for the Morrison's Cove Herald
