2012 started with extensive allergy testing. After being poked, prodded, and scratched the only allergies medical professionals could confirm were dogs, cats, and dust. Because two out of three of those things roam freely through my house (HINT I am totally not a cat person.) nearly constantly, I welcomed four more prescriptions to my daily regime of pills and tonics.
Some of the other things giving me issues are cinnamon, chocolate, and raw onions. The allergist seemed baffled at why these things cause a reaction, when the test showed no allergies to them. She referred me to my GI doc who I was seeing anyway for an unrelated issue. Maybe it's related to the esophagus.
Or maybe it's oral allergy syndrome. It's like whoever wrote the wikipedia article about it knows me personally. The descriptions are scarily accurate. Testing requires a series of oral challenges. (Yeah, every time I say "oral challenge" it sounds more dirty than the last time I said it.)
Sadly I was unable to bring it up with my tall, dark, handsome GI specialist because there was this massively huge poster on the wall behind his head titled something like this - LIVING WITH ANAL FISSURES. I know, right? There was no way I could talk about oral challenges with a straight face while looking at him, much less while looking at him with that title arcing above his head.
Until they get it figured out, I'll continue to skip chocolate. Thank goodness for conversation hearts, or it would be a very bleak Valentine's Day.
