No, not injection drugs: allergy shots. I never suspected I would say this, but it's true: I love allergy shots. I'm currently on shot 19 of a course of 26 (not counting 3 years of monthly maintenance doses).
If you've been around me in the past five years, you probably were sneezed on and I apologize. I was so allergic to dust that I could barely get through the day, especially during pregnancy and nursing when I tried not to be continually doped up on antihistamines. But even the newer antihistamines could only take the edge off the problem and reduce my Kleenex usage from three boxes a week to two (I actually never measured this, but it was an absurd amount). I had horrible allergy attacks without fail every Sunday morning when I put on my church clothes, and then at church because of the carpeting and fabric-covered pews. I felt bad taking communion directly from the cup because the person next to me would think I was getting sick when really I had just been sneezing all service because of the dust. One time I had an allergy attack so bad I had to leave work.
Austin has commented that he would never go to a doctor's appointment with two kids in tow. It's a bit bizarre, but my allergy shots have become an activity for us, much like going to the park or gym or library. On Tuesdays when we go, Tucker uses the chalk and plays with the trains. On Thursdays we have a picnic there after Bible Study. If they aren't busy and I get my shot really fast (and only need to wait there for the 20 minutes to make sure I'm not having a bad reaction), Tucker complains because he wants to play longer.
The shots start at 1:1000 concentration, then go to 1:100, 1:10, 1:1 and finally, 1:0.5. Most people only begin to notice a difference after two or three months of shots, once the concentration builds up enough that their immune system starts reacting to it. I had a systemic reaction on my very first shot (a systemic reaction happens in about 1 out of 1000 allergy shot patients, and almost always on a high-concentration dose), which shocked both my doctor and the nurse. After that rocky start, I have to take two types of medicine on days when I get shots just to tolerate them. But the good news is that I started noticing a difference immediately in my quality of life.
Today, a minor miracle occurred: I cleaned the attic with no antihistamines in my system and sneezed twice. It's a whole new world.
