Hives - revisited (got some great news!)

So I still have hives - despite my earlier half-hopeful post about them abating. While, they didn't go away entirely they did moderate to a point where I could live with them and they have SLOWLY continued to improve. I'm still itchy enough that when I went into the powder room this morning to check my outfit one last time before leaving for work - Daniel's comment was "one last scratch before you go?"

It turns out (or at least seems that way) that the NuvaRing connection was more a hormonal coincidence and nothing more than that. Three cheers there.

Yesterday (2 1/2 months post appearance of the hives), I finally got in to see the allergist. He gave me an allergy test (something I haven't had done in 20 years or so) and informed me I'm not allergic to anything new. Yay team! He thinks my current "discomfort" is a combination of a virus, my normal allergies and really sensitive skin (my family doctor said as much so three cheers for her too).

The real good news though is that for 41 years I've lived with TWO anaphalactic allergies - tree nuts and seafood/fish. The tree nut allergy is alive and well (boo!) but I had no reaction whatsoever to the seafood/fish allergy. This is huge news. People are pretty careful about nuts. Nuts is an allergy I only had to casually worru about because society did all my worrying for me. That was never the case with my fish allergy. No one ever thinks twice about. Restaurants could be so much of a crap shoot - did they use the same frying for my chicken as they did for someone else's fish and chips? What about that big bowl of chopped crab at Subway sitting right next to the cold meats? Did the Chinese Food take-out take care to keep the spoon they used for shrimp away from the one they used for fried noodles?

This was an allergy so severe that casual contact had put me in the hospital 3 times. I have NEVER eaten seafood. When I was a kid there were two sets of dishes in my seafood loving family's home - my dishes and everyone else's. When my parents cooked fish, I had to leave the house (okay they shouldn't have been cooking it at all but I guess I survived ).

Anyway, my instructions for the doctor are to wait until my current problems subside and then to go ahead and try a SMALL amount. I'm so excited - all sorts of things I want to try. 'Course the doctor laughed and warned me that I might not LIKE fish once I get a chance to try it. I'm just so excited that I can - never thought I would. My mother is dead set against me trying anything whatsoever. Daniel not so adamant but certainly not as happy as I am about the whole prospect. Seriously though - my arm didn't even tingle during the scratch test.

Now if this confounded itching would just stop...