Allergies Suck

By Luth Brodie | June 9, 2008
Filed Under Luth Nonsense, Reel Life |

I’ve always had allergies, but I was never one of those sterotypical kids with allergies. I played sports growing up like softball and football (soccer) and American football. I went camping, fishing, rode my bike everywhere and other general nonsense you do in a midwestern summer. Only really a few times it ever was devistating. Why am I telling you all of this? I don’t know really. Just typing I guess. For the past 3 weeks I’ve been laying on a couch with a cold washcloth over my eyes. So not fun. Happily though, its managable now. But I missed an imporatant 3 weeks of working towards my new store re-opening. So, I’ve decided to push it back to July 1st.

Now I don’t think my allergies got any worse over the years per say, which is the opposite of what usually happens. I think it has a lot more to due with the fact that I’m exposed to different pollen then what I grew up around. Even moving to a different town can effect people but moving to another country hasn’t been good at all. Its not just the allergies, its the sevarity and amount of colds and flu. It seems as if I spend most of the year ill since I moved here. Yet another reason why I should move back to the states I guess!

When I moved to SF, I had no issues at all. I think that had a lot to do with the rain and the constant wind blowing the pollution and pollen across the bay. However, if I went to LA to work for a couple of days all hell would break loose no matter what time of the year. Personally I think its funny that I’m allergic to LA, that place is just bloody horrible.

I usually get a mild form of hayfever every spring, but nothing a constant dose of benadry can’t make managable. Last spring was the worst in memory and this year hasn’t been that much better. I guess its what I get from living by one of the large royal parks in London. All those trees, all that tree pollen and the much pollution have made parts of the year extremly miserable. To make matters worse, its not attacking the sinuses like what is typical for hayfever. It’s mostly in my eyes. Itchy, watery eyes. That wouldn’t be so bad. It’s the constant feeling like something is in my eye. Months of that all day long can drive a person mental. Add to that the swelling. Remember, your eyes are surrounded in mucus. All allergies are is an increase in white blood cells in your mucus, which makes those areas swell. Not fun at all!

Tree pollen isn’t the only type of pollen, but certainly the worst for me. There is grass pollen that only affects me when I’m around a freshly mowed lawn or trapsing through a field. Usually it just makes me get the typical hayfever, but I do remember a time after running around a northern CA mountain and my throat closing the next morning. Kind of scary to wake up and unable to talk. I had to txt a friend to call me in ill for a kickboxing tourney I was judging that day! Only real upside to this is it got me out of lawn mowing chores as a kid.

Then you have flower pollen. This one is probably the least of the pollen issues. I can be around flowers and I even have some potted ones in the flat. However as I learned when I was maybe 5 or so was that rubbing pollen all over your face in a native american face painting style is not a good idea. It was from this huge orange flower that had red pollen planted in the garden. Needless to say my eyes swelled shut!

For me, foods is the biggest one but technically not allergies. I am unable to break down certain foods, mostly veggies with skin. Like tomatoes, onions, peppers, ect. They make me very ill. However I can have tomato sauce, onion granules (spice in a bottle), ground pepper and such. I’ve lived with it all my life so I’m used to it, but it makes my meals pretty boring and going out to eat frustrating.

I’m also strangely allergic to the sun, but not the creepy can’t go outside ever type. It only occurs with sunburns. I hear normal sunburns are pretty painful, but think about adding swelling and itching! It is quite horrible. Mild sunburns aren’t so bad, benadryl and aloe makes it go away. There are really only 2 noteable experiences I had with it. When I was 12 I stayed with my cousins for the summer in Minnesota and a good part of that was spent at their cabin near the Canadian boder. My back had gotton a pretty decent burn but the swelling and itching made it unbearable. I couldn’t move for 2 days and my Aunt had to constantly put ice cold washcloths on my back.

Even more noteable was a trip to Montanta when I was 17. We had gone to a water park and I burnt the tops of my feet! I couldn’t move my ankles or toes due to the swelling and it itched like hell. I clearly remember sneaking out into the woods with cold washcloths wrapped around my feet to have a smoke. And white water rafting the next day was painful as hell until the ice cold mountian water splashed into the raft.

On the up side, I’m less likely to get skin cancer for my close attention to sunblock. Right?