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And this is why we get second opinions
Jun. 7th, 2023 01:56 pmRemember back in January when I got diagnosed with bunches of allergies? I wanted shots, but I couldn't get them done at the place that diagnosed me because they were way too inconvenient, and for months I couldn't get them to release my records. In the meantime I resigned myself to starting all over at a major hospital much closer to me, and I resented all the time lost, because I could have been almost five months into the treatments by now.
Well, the time passed. Yesterday I went to that major hospital, with copies of my records from the first place, and the doctor was like "huh, these test results are perfectly legible to me and I could order a series of shots based on them, but they don't match your clinical experience as you're reporting it." We opted to re-test. Long story short, it wasn't as miserable as last time by a long shot and, although they tested me for a lot of the same allergens, I came back allergic only to cats and dogs.
Cats and dogs. Not dust mites, not all those trees, not all that mold. Also not cockroaches, the one thing this panel covered that the first one didn't. Shots aren't recommended, and neither are breaks in cat ownership, since I've gotten myself pretty well de-sensitized again (at the three-cat level) and that's how we'd all like to keep it.
I'm relieved, since that was going to be a long and unpleasant project, but also completely baffled. Also feeling very distrustful of that first office -- how sure they were that I needed shots, how much they wanted me to get the shots from them, how reluctant they were to release my records to anyone else. Allergen tests include a "positive control" that's just histamine, so it wouldn't exactly be hard to cause a lot of false positives by brushing that stuff along a few of the other scratchers with the intended allergens. And of course it could be that my whole body is in a less reactive state somehow than it was over the winter... nobody mentioned that sort of thing being common though.
Well, the time passed. Yesterday I went to that major hospital, with copies of my records from the first place, and the doctor was like "huh, these test results are perfectly legible to me and I could order a series of shots based on them, but they don't match your clinical experience as you're reporting it." We opted to re-test. Long story short, it wasn't as miserable as last time by a long shot and, although they tested me for a lot of the same allergens, I came back allergic only to cats and dogs.
Cats and dogs. Not dust mites, not all those trees, not all that mold. Also not cockroaches, the one thing this panel covered that the first one didn't. Shots aren't recommended, and neither are breaks in cat ownership, since I've gotten myself pretty well de-sensitized again (at the three-cat level) and that's how we'd all like to keep it.
I'm relieved, since that was going to be a long and unpleasant project, but also completely baffled. Also feeling very distrustful of that first office -- how sure they were that I needed shots, how much they wanted me to get the shots from them, how reluctant they were to release my records to anyone else. Allergen tests include a "positive control" that's just histamine, so it wouldn't exactly be hard to cause a lot of false positives by brushing that stuff along a few of the other scratchers with the intended allergens. And of course it could be that my whole body is in a less reactive state somehow than it was over the winter... nobody mentioned that sort of thing being common though.
