Saturday, May 24, 2008

Sneezing and Itching

After years of "seasonal" (read: 10 months out of 12) allergies I finally broke down and decided to get a referral to an allergist so I can start getting *gulp* shots to help me battle the elements. Our Otolaryngologist Dr. Natalie Roberge is a very likable woman. She's friendly, straight forward, listens to your concerns and addresses all your issues. She is the one who removed the rotting cotton ball from Ms. R's nasal cavity, realigned her cheek bone, removed her adenoids, removes copious amounts of wax from my ear canals frequently, and takes care of our allergy needs. One of the best things about Dr. Roberge is she gives you a month of whatever samples she wants you to try out so you can get a real sense of what it can do for you. Yesterday I talked to her about Ms. R's nose - which is always runny and the "bruising" underneath her right eye (her left cheek has nerve damage and doesn't suffer the same problem). She gave us a month of Singular, I immediately gave Ms. R one of them. This morning she came in crowing, "Mom! My nose isn't runny!" How sad is it that she's has a runny nose for so long that it's a notable event.
Dr. Roberge also looked in my ears, asked, "Can you hear anything?" Rather grumpily I replied, "From time to time. Not very well..." as she pulled out the ear cleaning instruments. 5 minutes of saline spray, suction and tiny scraping tools later I felt like a new woman. Then we addressed the allergies. The bane of my existence. After peering up my nose (how ridiculous do you feel with someone peering up your nose?) and commenting on how my allergies certainly seem to have taken over she agreed that the next reasonable step is allergy testing. I am not looking forward to the testing (they scratch/prick your skin with various allergens to see what you react to) or the shots; but I AM looking forward to not having itchy eyes/tongue/throat/ear canals and sneezing my way through the year.

4 comments:

Jenie said...

Disgusting post:) But I am glad you will be able to get feeling better.

mom said...

sounds like you got a really GOOD doctor and you will feel SO much better when you can actually get up in the AM and not have to spend the first hour blowing your nose sneezing and generally feeling like CRAP. SO all in all the needles will be well worth it.

Dawn said...

the whole ear wax thing happens to me too, and Trevor...must be genetic, who can we blame it on??? lol

Lindsey Rae said...

Good job! You are getting the shots! Just remember they won't really start working for awhile...6 months to a year and you have to go every week and be consistent or you just end up having to re-do them all the time. I've got mine for a year and a half now and it's pretty good. I still have some trouble, but depends on the day and it's not usually as bad as before.