![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
It's been a wild week but let's start with the allergy patch testing I just did. This was Science and, as such, was pretty fascinating: on Monday they taped tiny squares of many common allergens to my back (115 of them, apparently some of the most extensive patch testing you can get done anywhere), on Wednesday they removed the tape and looked for any initial reactions, and on Friday they looked one more time. The whole time I wasn't allowed to work out or get my back wet in any way, though I could wash my hair in the sink and take sponge baths.
My worry here was that I could have become allergic to some of the materials in my Essure implants: nickel being the most common culprit. It turned out that this doctor knew all about Essure and had been an expert witness in the trial against Bayer that took it off the market(!), so he was intimately familiar with the contents of the implants and made sure I got tested for nickel and gold. (He didn't have platinum but, as I told him, my wedding rings are platinum: if that annoyed my skin we would have known by now.) If any of those were an issue I'd have a disturbingly exciting time getting rid of the allergens.
And my hope was that I'd find something else I was allergic to, so that I could start avoiding it and maybe see my back get happier.
Good news and bad news: yes, they found some allergies! Bad news, two of them are very commonly used in fragrances for various personal care products. I've confirmed that linalool, which sounds like some kind of made-up Dr. Seuss sludge, is in both my shampoo and conditioner, which have been sluicing down my back for years. There's limonene in some of my favorite lip stuff from Tarte, though I haven't had any problems with my lips so I suspect that the shampoo/conditioner is a much worse problem; and apparently I am also allergic to octyl salicylate which doesn't seem to show up anywhere in my products. Both limonene and linalool are naturally occurring in a bunch of plants... linalool in particular shows up in "more than 200 natural botanical oils, including lavender, ylang-ylang, bergamot, jasmine and geranium" according to the internet. Goodbye lavender. Both are known to be allergenic and are banned as ingredients in the EU, but are naturally all over the place in the US where we are obsessed with nice smells.
Buying new, unscented shampoo and conditioner now from SEEN, which is apparently run by a friend of my allergist.
The fact sheet given by the doctor is nice in its simplicity and directness: Your body has changed and is sensitive now to things that didn't cause you trouble before. You will be allergic to them for the rest of your life. You will always need to avoid them. Okay okay fine, but I'm going to grumble about it a little.
My worry here was that I could have become allergic to some of the materials in my Essure implants: nickel being the most common culprit. It turned out that this doctor knew all about Essure and had been an expert witness in the trial against Bayer that took it off the market(!), so he was intimately familiar with the contents of the implants and made sure I got tested for nickel and gold. (He didn't have platinum but, as I told him, my wedding rings are platinum: if that annoyed my skin we would have known by now.) If any of those were an issue I'd have a disturbingly exciting time getting rid of the allergens.
And my hope was that I'd find something else I was allergic to, so that I could start avoiding it and maybe see my back get happier.
Good news and bad news: yes, they found some allergies! Bad news, two of them are very commonly used in fragrances for various personal care products. I've confirmed that linalool, which sounds like some kind of made-up Dr. Seuss sludge, is in both my shampoo and conditioner, which have been sluicing down my back for years. There's limonene in some of my favorite lip stuff from Tarte, though I haven't had any problems with my lips so I suspect that the shampoo/conditioner is a much worse problem; and apparently I am also allergic to octyl salicylate which doesn't seem to show up anywhere in my products. Both limonene and linalool are naturally occurring in a bunch of plants... linalool in particular shows up in "more than 200 natural botanical oils, including lavender, ylang-ylang, bergamot, jasmine and geranium" according to the internet. Goodbye lavender. Both are known to be allergenic and are banned as ingredients in the EU, but are naturally all over the place in the US where we are obsessed with nice smells.
Buying new, unscented shampoo and conditioner now from SEEN, which is apparently run by a friend of my allergist.
The fact sheet given by the doctor is nice in its simplicity and directness: Your body has changed and is sensitive now to things that didn't cause you trouble before. You will be allergic to them for the rest of your life. You will always need to avoid them. Okay okay fine, but I'm going to grumble about it a little.
