Allergies on the Homestead

When I was a child I was impervious to allergies, with the exception of poison ivy. Later in my teen years, I developed an allergy to penicillin products. This was a nuisance, but was workable in the rare occasion that I needed to go on antibiotics. When I hit my 30's, I began noticing that my spring cold seem to come and go with certain pollen explosions. Uh-oh. The unhappy reality hit...I had allergies. Still, for a time they were tolerable, and only bothered me when the pollen count was high. But then, they started bothering me whenever I was around hay. Or cats. Or dogs. Or goats. In order to stop from scratching my eyes out and blowing my nose off, I turned to Allegra. (It actually came about a little differently than that, but that will be a topic for a post soon to come!) The Allegra worked wonderfully for a time...no more pain, running nose, or itchy, bloodshot eyes. After a year or so...even on the Allegra, I had a five minute time frame of being around hay before my nose and eyes would begin to protest! This was and is no way to live on a small farm!!!

Did you notice a pattern? I finally did. My allergies are getting consistently WORSE! I finally decided that I wasn't going to wait to find out just how bad 'worse' can get. I opened the phone book a couple weeks ago and called a local allergy doctor for an appointment to begin the allergy shot regimen. My appointment is in a few weeks, and I will post how it goes, and any significant development as time goes on. I have heard a lot of good results from folks who have undergone allergy shots, and I am hoping that I will eventually have my own success story to tell!