I have what I will refer to as a cranky immune system. It's never really worked correctly. Some people have a theory that if you don't get sick enough as a child then your immune system will focus its efforts on benign substances like pollen. This leads to asthma and allergies. I have been taking medication for my asthma since I was a toddler. It manifests itself both as exercise induced and allergic asthma. Certain types of exercise don't bother me. I can do five hours on an eliptical and be completely fine (aside from the muscle fatigue). But if I try to run a quarter of a mile I can feel all of the tubes in my lungs starting to get narrower and narrower. This isn't to say that I don't go for runs. It is just really difficult and I need to have my inhaler with me at all times.
As for the allergies, I sometimes feel like I am allergic to everything. I am fortunate in that I do not have any food allergies, which can be some of the most restrictive and dangerous allergies, but each and every spring I feel like I have been punched in the face by all of the flowers. They gaze at me with their little, happy, pollen-filled faces and laugh as I sneeze. While I dislike the "hay fever" that I have to suffer through yearly, it is nothing in comparison to my allergy to animals. I have been allergic to dogs and cats my entire life. For much of my childhood, I could be around dogs, we just couldn't have one (other than hypoallergenic breeds) in our house. Since childhood, however, I have become more allergic to dogs and have symptoms around all breeds of dogs except for toy poodles. Cats were another story. I was so allergic that I never touched a cat until I was dissecting one in my anatomy class in college. My animal allergies pretty much extend to any animal with fur or dander. I tried petting horses at the fair one time when I was in high school and my eyes almost completely swelled shut before I could drive myself home.
But these are not my only immune system problems. I also have something called psoriasis in which my skin cells don't know when to stop growing after I get a cut. They grow and they grow and they grow until they create too many layers of skin. This doesn't happen every time I get a cut, but it happens in zones of skin (right now on my right forearm) until I can use steroid creams or foams to get it to go away (steroids pretty much act to beat down your immune system - when you are suffering from an overactive immune system, steroids can bring things back into balance).
Pregnancy, however, has brought me to a whole new level of immune dysfunction. Pregnancy does some funky things to your immune system. Some of these changes are for important reasons, and some are just because you have crazy hormones zooming around your body that throw the natural balance off. The first problem that I noticed was when the hubs and I were visiting some family. I decided that I wanted to play with they hypoallergenic puppy that one of my husband's family members owned, but after about 30 minutes of being around the puppy, with only about 5 minutes of direct contact with the puppy, I was wheezing, my nose was running and my eyes were watering. Finally I decided to pop a couple of benadryl and I spent the next 3 hours sleeping. I visited my mom a couple of weeks later. She still owns one of the dogs that I grew up with (he is 14 years old and blind, but still gets joy out of his daily hamburger patty). I was never allergic to this dog growing up, but when I went away to college and started visiting home over breaks I realized that I would get sniffly when I got home. Then I went away to graduate school, visited less often, and became severely allergic to her dog. Finally, about a year ago, the hubs and I had to make a decision that we could no longer stay at my mom's house overnight because, without taking my inhaler every few hours, I would wake up unable to breathe by morning. We still visit during the day, after heavy antihistamine administration. However, when we visited a few weeks ago the antihistamines were not working. Then the hubs and I went home, I used my inhaler and more antihistamines, and my symptoms still didn't go away. I took a shower and went to bed, and I was struggling to breathe. I finally was at the point where I thought I would have to go to the emergency room (the day after we visited my mom was a Sunday), but I didn't want to pay the $75 co-pay so I decided I would tough it out for one more night with a coca-cola (caffeine can cause bronchodialation) and sleeping sitting up. Thankfully after the second night of sleep I was breathing much better and the pharmacy was open so I could get a new inhaler.
At least with the asthma and allergies, however, there are medications that are safe to use during pregnancy. That is not the case with psoriasis. In fact, there aren't a ton of reliable medications for psoriasis that can be used even if you aren't pregnant. Topical steroids can be harmful to the fetus, especially during the first trimester. So I just have to watch daily as my skin gets worse and worse.
At least this is all for a greater good. I remind myself of that every time I have to skip a meal because I feel to sick to eat, cannot take an ibuprofen even though I am in pain, or when I notice a new little cut that is going to be sticking around with me for the next 7 months.
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