allergies Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Lydster: peanuts!

immunotherapy?

Peanuts! As I noted, our daughter developed a tree nut and peanut allergy. We discovered this when she was about 2 1/2 and had a cookie served by someone else.

1440 had a helpful summary. According to a study published in Pediatrics, “new food allergies in the US have dropped 36% in 10 years. The drop follows a 2015 landmark trial on peanuts and shifting national guidance on early introduction to food allergens.” Ah, if it had only been available a decade or sooner.

Wow. “About 60,000 children have avoided developing peanut allergies after guidance first issued in 2015 upended medical practice by recommending introducing the allergen to infants starting as early as 4 months.” I’ve seen stories on the evening news, but without sufficient detail. This is REALLY interesting to me.

My wife, daughter, and I have asked restaurant servers about their processes. Some places provide more diligence than others; you can immediately sense it.

“Researchers analyzed electronic health records for roughly 125,000 children from 48 pediatric practices across the US. They looked at cohorts of children ages 0-3 before and after a 2015 trial found that feeding peanut products to babies cut their allergy risk by over 80%.” This is great news.

“Guidance was updated to encourage early introduction of peanuts to high-risk children; today, parents are encouraged to introduce peanuts and eight other common allergens to children, regardless of risk level.” High risk includes kids with severe eczema.

“By 2020, an estimated 57,000 fewer children developed food allergies alongside the evolving recommendations. Read the complete study here.”

I can’t help but wonder how that would have worked out if we knew then what we know now.

Treatment

There is also a Peanut Allergy Treatment. “In recent years, peanut immunotherapy has emerged as a treatment option. It is for adults and most children.

“Peanut allergy immunotherapy is a treatment that focuses on building tolerance to peanuts. It desensitizes the body to the allergen.

“The treatment starts with a tiny amount of peanut protein, then gradually increases to larger amounts until a target dose is reached. Building up peanut exposure desensitizes the patient to higher doses of peanut protein.

“Peanut allergy immunotherapy is a treatment, not a cure. It is designed to reduce the frequency and severity of allergic reactions. This includes life-threatening anaphylaxis.”

We haven’t talked about this. However, she had a couple of scares in South Africa, where the labeling was not as robust as in the United States. If she wanted to start treatment, I would hope it would be while she’s still on my insurance for the next few years.

Lydster: go to the South African consulate

Happy birthday!!

Last we checked, my daughter and I were getting ready to go to the South African consulate in New York City in mid-January. She was there for about 45 minutes. Her father had to stay downstairs, as did a couple of other parents, and there were no chairs; they specifically did not want us to sit on the floor.

Everything seemed to be in place, but we still fretted a bit. That evening, we went to see Maybe Happy Ending with a niece and her Significant Other, the first Broadway show I had seen since Newsies in 2014, and also with my daughter.

Shockingly, her visa arrived in a week —yay!

Jersey

On February 5th, my wife, daughter, and I went to Newark. My wife rightly hated driving in New Jersey, and the closer we got to Newark, the worse. One particular car was in the right lane of three heading south while we were in the middle lane. The car from our right decided to be in the same space we were in, so my wife had to evade the vehicle, not even having time to see if a vehicle was in the left lane to avoid this fool.

We stopped at a hotel near the Newark airport and took a shuttle to the airport a couple of hours later. The shuttle driver’s driving made my wife nervous. “Jersey drivers” is an earned epitaph.

We arrived at the airport and went through all the processing more quickly than I anticipated. My daughter sat waiting for two hours before boarding, a bit annoyed that we got there so early.

Our daughter had a 14-hour direct flight from Newark to Cape Town, South Africa, and got a ride to her college. Before beginning classes, she experienced many cool and fun orientation stuff, including sightseeing. She seems to be enjoying herself.

School days

Classes began on February 17th, and she’s enjoying dance, history, and art. One of the things she mentioned about her art class was that most of her classmates have been attending classes together for the past two years. She’s the only American there, and they’re asking her questions—”Why does your country do THAT?”—but they’re otherwise pretty chill about it.

She has had a couple of allergy scares, one while eating pizza and the other a pasta dish. Food labeling is not as robust as it is in the United States. And she’s had some difficulty with her credit and debit cards, even though we called her banks before she left the country.

Last year, my wife and I went to her college in Massachusetts and spent time with her both before and after her birthday, although not on her birthday. This year, she’s 7,845 miles or 12,625 kilometers. We knew this was going to be the case. It’s a good thing she’s doing what she wants to: exploring the world.

Yet I feel a soupçon of melancholy that she’s so far away. Happy birthday, my dear daughter. Enjoy your special day.

One of those things, again

mostly about money

If you have ever had something go wrong, you might have put a neutral spin on it and said to yourself, “Well, it’s one of those things.” I’ve been saying it a few times recently.

ITEM: I have been feeling off with a head cold for much of the month. Since I’m not “sick” – no temperature, two negative COVID tests – I’ve taken various anti-allergy meds. Could I be having seasonal allergies? It WAS 60F (15.6C) on 10 February, breaking the record for the date in Albany by 7F. Absurd. I was looking forward to a big snowstorm forecast for 13 Feb, but it was a bust as the weather pattern shifted to the south.

ITEM: I was supposed to pay our city taxes by the end of January. To avoid writing a check because checks are expensive, I arranged for our credit union to send them a bank draft, which cost us nothing. But I could not find the bill, so I went to the city’s website and got an amount.

We got a letter from the city in early February with the bank draft returned. I must have picked up the amount from the PREVIOUS year’s taxes. Now we need to pay a couple hundred dollars more, about half of it being interest, by 29 February. So I must either resend the bank draft and write a check for the difference or go to City Hall with the bank draft and cash. This process was supposed to make the process easier and cheaper. I muffed it, though, and it is neither.

ITEM: Likewise, my wife missed the payment date to pay the Spring tuition for our daughter’s college tuition. This involves two-step authorization, which is too boring to detail. But it was more money out of pocket.

Less money

ITEM: At the beginning of the month, I pay specific bills just after my Social Security check hits my bank account, notably my Discover card. But this fiscal dance was getting a bit treacherous. I had less money than I counted on and had to go to our credit union to take out money to put in my checking account.

As it turns out, I had authorized payment for my MasterCard, which I seldom use, but I needed to do so after losing my wallet. On 9 January, the amount due was paid in full. Twice. I didn’t notice this until I got the next MasterCard bill, which showed a CREDIT. I don’t know how that happened, but I’m using that card for everything until the credit is gone.

ITEM: I saw that I got a letter in the mail from the Albany Police Department. Maybe they had a breakthrough in discovering who took possession of my wallet’s contents.

No such luck. I received the contents of a letter from someone surnamed Rogers, who had mailed to the Albany police chief, disputing a traffic ticket in precise detail of alleged misconduct by the APD. “I require proof that I did what you are accusing me of. You have until Friday 12/22/23 @ 5:00 pm to get it to me. If nothing is received… this ticket will be null and void.”

I note that the street number is the same as mine, but the street name, while starting with the same letter as mine, is not mine. The ZIP Code is different. I took it to my local police station.

ITEM: In good news, I’m getting a free week of the Boston Globe online due to some class action suit I probably signed onto. Even better, my payment in Ambrose v. Boston Globe Media Partners LLC, Case No. 1:22-cv-10195-RGS, was approved, and I received a payment of $158.03.

So it’s NOT allergies?

rhinitis

This spring has been terrible for my nose and throat. I assumed the cause. But it’s NOT allergies?

I would have coughing jags. One at church on May 8 was so severe that I had to leave the choir loft, lest I hack through the sermon. I seemed OK enough the following Wednesday to ride my bike a few days later to a memorial service for a choir member, then onto my Dad’s group at church. But by the time I rode home, I couldn’t get enough air. This wasn’t the not-fit-enough response, but the my-lungs-feel-awful scenario.

The next morning, I had another coughing event WHILE I was taking my blood pressure. That 168 systolic reading WAS an aberration. Later, I went to my allergist. To test whether the allergy shots I took for about five years, but hadn’t taken in for just as long, I had to stop taking Zyrtec for three days. So I was pretty miserable when I once again became a human pincushion.

It’s all in my nose

But surprise! I have rhinitis, which “is moderate to severe and not well controlled.” But I have “no evidence of remaining sensitivity to tree or grass pollens based upon negative skin tests to these allergens.” I AM still allergic to ragweed, but that’s a late summer thing. “A second course of immunotherapy is not recommended.” So I’m still using nasal sprays in the morning and evening.

Then am I ill? I went to the local urgent care place as a walk-in the following Saturday. The hour-long wait turned out to be 210 minutes. Did I want a COVID test? Sure, why not? And just as the rapid tests have shown, I still don’t have it.

It’s a strange thing having symptoms that COULD be COVID. Almost any bodily reaction COULD be COVID. And with the recent spread into the Mid-Atlantic and upper Midwest, I suppose I need to continue mask indoors. So far, so good.

Monkeypox

Oh, and it’s not monkeypox, people. Some people I know IRL are fretting, “First COVID, now this.” Not yet. Another person I know IRL believes that it’s a WHO plot to inject us again.

Maladies Melodies Allergies

my second COVID booster

There’s a Paul Simon song that starts Maladies Melodies Allergies. I so relate.

My allergies to pollen and the like have been quite severe this season, the worst in years. They were so awful that every time my head hit the pillow at night, within five minutes, I would start to cough uncontrollably. Even trying to sleep with my head propped up wasn’t sufficient. One night I woke up four times, after about 90 minutes each time.

Finally, I started taking the generic version of Nyquil just so I could sleep for six hours in a row. It has a cough suppressant and a nasal decongestant. Likewise, my daughter suffers from seasonal allergies which affect her sleep. She actually stayed home from school a day last week, from sheer fatigue.

I decided that we should each take a home COVID test. As I expected, they were both negative. The other motivation for mine was that I was scheduled to get a second COVID booster. I understand that getting the booster while you actually have COVID is contraindicated. Incidentally, I had no bad reaction, as usual, as long as I didn’t lean my arm on the injection site.

We now have several COVID test kits, some from that time not so long ago when they were a bit difficult to come by. Now they are practically ubiquitous, which is good since I’ve used them a total of thrice in a week. The CDC guidelines in Albany County changed this past Thursday from GREEN to YELLOW, which means masking is no longer optional in church. So before Maundy Thursday and Easter Sunday, I took a rapid test.

Expiry

I was curious about the fact that all the tests we currently own have an expiration date of June 30. This article from Health News Hub states: “The Food and Drug Administration countered Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance by extending their expiration dates. The FDA says it’s OK to add three months to any expiration date printed on a test kit box. (The BinaxNow test kit received FDA approval for an extended shelf life after tests showed the kit components were effective for up to 15 months.)

“Beyond the extended expiration date, results are not reliable.”

Also: “Most manufacturers of at-home tests recommend storing the kits between 35 degrees and 86 degrees. The greatest threat now is delivery during the cold winter months. A test kit left for a day or more in your mailbox at frigid temperatures could freeze the liquid reagent inside a cartridge that comes with the kit, invalidating the test results.”

So, if you see me going into a coughing jag, it’s unlikely that I am spreading COVID, only hay fever. It’s because I’m going to be getting used to sticking a cotton swab up my nose for a while.

Oh, yeah, that Paul Simon song.