Stay puft marshmallow hands.

I quit taking my allergy medication about a month ago because of our TTC status...and so far I wasn't really having any problems (my severe seasonal allergies are the worst between April and August). All seemed well.

Last night I was at a friend's house watching a movie, and by the time I left there I was feeling really itchy. I just chalked this up to my having been exposed to a dog and cat for the evening (I'm mildly allergic to cats, moderately allergic to dogs). By the time I got home I was full blown itching like crazy. I got in bed and fell asleep, but woke up around 4 or 5 AM. I got up to use the bathroom, and when I looked in the mirror I could see a blotchy red rash over my face, along with severe swelling (my eyelids were so swollen my eyes looked like little slits). I looked down and noticed that my hands were also quite puffy. I was still itching and had a red rash over my arms and legs. I woke up Mr.P and we both got on our computers and started googling my symptoms. Some scary stuff came up, but he was able to calm me down and we decided that since I wasn't having any breathing problems we would go back to sleep and see how I was in a few hours.

When I woke up around 8, my symptoms were worse, and my left hand was so swollen I couldn't bend my fingers. We threw on some clothes and jumped in the car and drove to the emergency room. At that point I wasn't thinking it was an allergic reaction since I'd never experienced anything like it, I was panicing and thinking it was something horrible. Luckily the skilled nurse and doctor at UW Medical Center recongnized it as an allergic reaction and promptly hooked me up to an IV with medicine to reduce the swelling and itching. A couple hours later I was good to go, with my face looking much better (not really puffy, but still red and blotchy) and the itching had gone away. My hands are still pretty puffy, but not as bad. They wanted to cut my wedding ring off my finger, but Mr.P and I refused unless the swelling gets worse so that the circulation gets cut off, the ring will stay.

They weren't sure what caused my reaction, I didn't eat anything out of the ordinary, nor did I have any breathing problems from the attack (which is usually the first symptom of a food allergic reaction). They think that I may be having an increased intolerance to dogs and cats, and they referred me to get new allergy testing to check and see if anything has changed in the 8 months since my last allergy test. They also said that with these kinds of severe reactions, they tend to get worse with each exposure, so they said for now to avoid any contact indoors with any small animals. I now have a small arsenal of meds to take in the next few days to further reduce the swelling.