Ice cream, here I come! (Allergies redux)

When it comes to medical issues, I’m just plain weird. Take those antibiotic allergies. One allergist says they aren’t anaphylactic so they aren’t dangerous; she also says it shouldn’t take nearly a week to react; other doctors say if there’s any swelling at all it’s dangerous…

I finally have a possible answer. Apparently there are a few people who react not to the antibiotics, but to the virus. There’s a possibility that all of those times I was reacting to strep or whatever I had, not to antibiotics at all. Of course there’s no way to test allergies to those antibiotics, so there’s no way to know for sure.

The good news is, a reaction like the one I had this weekend is apparently almost certainly a contact dermatitis, NOT a food allergy. YAY! No avoiding corn, corn chips, corn syrup, cornstarch, etc. The hard part is figuring out what on earth I might have reacted to, since my skin is so sensitive that I avoid contact with just about everything when it comes to my face. It took a long time, but I did finally come up with one possibility that makes a lot of sense. We started going to the gym regularly again recently. When we’re there we sweat a lot, and I use one of their handy little towels that they provide to dry my face. Everywhere I reacted was a place I used the towel to clean my face. At home we use perfume- and dye-free detergent; I’m guessing they use whatever’s cheap.

I don’t know for sure that’s it, but it makes a lot of sense. My fingers are crossed, because it’s a hell of a lot easier to bring my own towel to the gym than it is to avoid corn products! *sounds of much cheering and scooping of ice cream*

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