August Allergy Update

For those of you who have followed me as I have struggled to deal with sudden allergic reactions we are beginning to get some answers.  After months of trying to go through our insurance company for allergy shots and getting no where we have switched doctors and decided to pay for the allergy testing and shots on our own.  I love my new doctor Kristi Baker in Clinton, Oklahoma.  She spent over an hour with me at my first visit last Tuesday.  She started me on a new regimen of medications along with a 7 day "No Flour, No Sugar, No Artificial Sugar" eating plan and then this coming Tuesday she will tell me what foods I can add back into my diet.  

  She prescribed Flova for my migraines and praise the Lord it works!!!  I might actually be able to control the migraines that I know are awaiting me this November when the Mountain Cedar Pollen starts back up.  It is a preventative drug that I take when I feel a migraine coming on or when I know I'm going to get a migraine, like every time the pollen count is over 7.   I took one on Wednesday and it worked great!!!  Unlike the Imatrex that I tried a few months ago and had a bad reaction to.  

   The bad news is that my asthma has been aggravated by the allergy issues I've had and so I had to go back on a daily asthma steroid inhaler and an albuterol regimen.  It has been 18 years since I've had to be on daily asthma medicine so I was a little discouraged to know for sure that it's back.  But my doc feels that if we get the allergies under control the asthma will go away.   I'll write a little more about this new development in my next post.

   Anyways, we found out that it will cost $1500 for the allergy testing and one years worth of allergy shots so we now know what we're going to do with the money from my husbands bass boat once it sell ;)  Oh yes, he's excited about that...he wants a healthy wife right??  Yes, he's been great about it, that was his first idea for coming up with the money.  Don't worry he has a two man bass boat that he prefers to use anyways.  So hopefully by next month God will have provided the money needed to go ahead and start treatment.  Immunotherapy (allergy shots) is the only proven way to take care of these airborne pollen allergies.  I must build up my immunity.  

   For the time being I continue to take 2 Zyrtec-D, 1 Zantac and Flonase (nasal steriod)  daily to help prepare and strengthen my system for the battle against these pollens until I can build up an immunity with the allergy shots.