Post #39
Allergy testing
1st November 2003, lunch time | Comments (9)
By this wednesday, after exhausting every other option under the sun, I was down to three strategies for dealing with these darn mouth ulcers:
- Suddenly become 40 years old. (My doctor tells me they might just go of their own accord by middle age);
- Sleep twelve hours a day and spend the other twelve doing aerobics and eating vegetables;
- Get tested for allergies.
Option 1 was out, and option 2 would have to be a last resort. So I plumped for option 3.
I’ve had allergy testing done before, when I was young, and the process hasn’t altered a whole lot in the intervening years. You roll up your sleeves and put your forearms on the table, palms up. Then the nurse slaps a length of sticky-tape onto each forearm, running from the inside of your wrist up to the inside of your elbow. Along each side of the tape run a series of numbers: 1–10 up one side and 11–20 down the other.
This numbered tape lets the nurse drip 40 different allergens (in solution) on to your arms and keep track of what went where, in case anything reacts. She also applies two controls: water and histamine. Water shouldn't do anything, histamine should swell up into an little itchy lump (and it does).
When she’s finished with her pipette, she takes a little scalpel blade and pricks your skin where the solutions sit (a different blade for each solution to avoid contamination). This lets the allergens into your blood stream and emphasises any allergic reaction.
Then, once you’ve been dripped on and stabbed, you get sent away to read your book for ten minutes while your body fights dust mites, grass pollen, cocoa, wheat, tomatoes, and so on.
I wasn’t entirely sure which I wanted: a positive or a negative reaction. A negative one would mean I’d exhausted another possible solution to my problem — not good. A positive reaction would have downsides as well. If it turned out I was allergic to, say, wheat, then that might mean we’d cracked what’s secretly causing these ulcers — but who wants to be allergic to wheat? Your meals would be pretty dull if you were allergic to tomatoes, peppers, spice, chocolate, fizzy drinks, citrus, vinegar and wheat. What would that leave me to survive on? Plant roots and dried lentil husks. Hardly fun.
In the end I just sat there and read my book and tried to ignore the mass of imaginary itches that had sprung up all over my body.
As it turns out, I don’t have any food allergies, not even to the things that clearly give me ulcers. Apparently I might have food intolerances but that’s all, and since you don’t die of food intolerance (unlike food allergies which can be fatal) the doctor wasn’t interested in going any further. Don’t eat those foods that give you ulcers, sir
, was his advice. Really? What a novel idea, Doctor. I see seven years of medical training have turned you in to an observational and analytical savant. Thank you.
So, that’s that — option 3 out the window.
*sigh*
Well, it’s been nice talking to you, but I really must get to bed — yes I know it’s early, but I have twelve hours of sleep to squeeze in before my morning aerobics and vegetable eating session. Time for last resorts…
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Blogmarks
A collection of miscellaneous links that don't merit a main blog posting, but which are interesting none-the-less.
Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.
— George W Bush (9)- What WordPress is doing to combat comment spam. (1)
- Mobile web tools, from Pukupi. (1)
- Pukupi’s top 10 hints for building interoperable mobile Web sites. (3)
- The photography of E.J. Peiker. (4)
Stuff from the intersection of design, culture and technology.
(3)- Some handy tips for advanced Google use. (35)
- Make your own church signs, or view some real ones. (8)
- Michael Heilemann is doing a great job with his new WordPress theme; Kubrick. (1)
- I’m late to the party, but Dan has a book out. (1)
- What a crazy concept for laying out housing estates. (3)
- In San Francisco, I live here. (Try the zoom feature.) (1)
- Spider-Man reviews crayons. [Via] (3)
- Some beautiful images from photographer Greg Downing. (2)
- Lots of links, from the Link Bunnies. (1)
- Nice “when I was a child” sort of post from Stuart. (1)
- How much does SafariSorter cost? (4)
- Some handy maintenance tips for Mac owners running Panther. (2)
- Alex King launches Use Tasks: a hosted service for Tasks and Tasks Pro™. (2)
- Min Jung, Anil Dash, and I get interviewed for HBO’s Real Sex. (10)
Blog-roll
A selection of blogs I read on a regular basis.
- Hmm, the blog-roll seems to be a little bit broken right now (it may be that the blo.gs service is having problems). I’ve sent myself an email about this problem, and will try to fix it ASAP.