An allergy PSA

A few weeks ago, I found myself sitting in a doctor’s office preparing to go into anaphylactic shock.

Okay, that might be just a bit of hyperbole, and I suppose you need some background. But get ready, because I’m about to present you with a public service announcement that could very well change your life.

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I grew up with monstrous hay fever, and I’m not exaggerating. I’ve known only one person in my life with seasonal allergies as bad as mine, and that person is my brother, Marc.

[Marc and I were born 20 months apart but were medically identical twins. We had tonsillectomies on the same day, had our appendixes [appendices?] removed shortly thereafter, got prematurely gray, even went so far as to develop warts on the bottoms of our feet at the same time. He always said that he dreaded the day I’d get pregnant.]

Every spring we’d suffer, and even one hour outdoors meant that we’d spend the rest of the day imprisoned in the house with explosive sneezing, watery eyes narrowed to slits, and noses running so relentlessly that we’d roll up Kleenexes and stuff them into our nostrils to mitigate at least some of the torture. It got to the point where I hated spring, and occasionally when a teacher would move a class outside to “enjoy the weather” I’d want to weep because of the agony I knew was coming.

On one hot day, during an ill-fated family fishing trip to a local park, I suffered what I considered to be my absolute most horrific allergic reaction ever. The park was full of weeds and hay, just dry vegetation everywhere, and after a few minutes my brother and I had to bolt for the car, where we sat with the windows rolled up, sweltering, blowing our raw noses and sneezing our brains out while the rest of the family fished. A fun outing.

Oh, the boxes and boxes of Kleenexes we went through.

It was unparalleled. At the time, we had a family friend who’d complain bitterly about his “allergies” while showing no visible sign whatsoever, and my mother would roll her eyes. “He sniffles twice and thinks he’s dying,” she’d scoff.

When I was particularly miserable I would take an antihistamine pill called Ornade. Because I had a hard time swallowing capsules, I would open them up and pour the teeny colored balls into root beer to drink. Then I would descend into a sluggish zombie-like state for half a day. I remember walking through my high school corridor and a teacher looking into my vacant eyes and stopping to ask if I was all right. Only now, all these decades later, am I realizing that those were time-release capsules, not meant to be opened, which would release the medication all at once. I was mini-overdosing.

Finally, as teenagers, my brother and I began seeing an allergist named Galen S. Egbert, a wild-haired eccentric whom we immediately dubbed “Eggie.” Eggie determined that I was allergic to maple, olive, willow, oak, sycamore, eucalyptus, pepper, magnolia, elm, fir, mulberry, pyracantha, and fruit trees; beet, kochia, franseria, plantain, and nettle weeds; and all grasses. In addition, I was allergic to dust, mold, mildew, tobacco smoke, and cats.

At that point I started getting allergy shots – twice weekly to start – and was told that even after a few years, I could need periodic boosters for the rest of my life. I was given two shots at a pop – one for cats, and one for everything else.

The injections, though, never seemed to help.

Two years later I moved to San Francisco, which was the best thing I could have done. I got out of the verdant Santa Clara Valley and moved to a foggy big city where there just wasn’t as much pollen. Even in the spring, I could breathe easily again.

Nevertheless, sometimes I did have debilitating hay fever attacks when I ventured away from the coast – in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, in California’s Gold Country, in Florence, Italy. A couple of times, too, I’d be invited into homes not knowing in advance that a cat lived there. After a few minutes I’d need to rush outside so I could try to catch my breath. There was no going back in.

Meanwhile, I also discovered sometime in the mid-1980s that I would break out in hives after taking penicillin or erythromycin. My mother was allergic to those drugs, too, so it didn’t surprise me. And I knew that after one bout of hives with an antibiotic, taking it again could send a person into life-threatening anaphylactic shock. So I gave up those drugs for good.

***

Or did I?

Fast-forward to 2025.

Because I’ve been dealing with intermittently clogged ears for the past year, I recently had some allergy testing done, in case I needed to start up immunotherapy again. When I went in for the consultation, the allergist noted my longstanding antibiotic allergies and asked me whether I would be willing to undertake a drug allergy “challenge.” She told me – much to my utter surprise – that recent studies have shown that most people actually outgrow their drug allergies within 5 to 10 years. What?? And since I’d been carrying the penicillin and erythromycin allergy labels since the 1980s – probably before my doctor was even born – she thought I’d be a low-risk candidate for the challenge.

During this test, you swallow a small dose of the drug and, if you tolerate it after 30 minutes, you then swallow a much larger dose and wait a full hour. The medical office, of course, has all the Epi-Pens or whatever they need to treat you if you go into anaphylactic shock.

Apparently quite a few patients decline the challenge because they’re simply too afraid. Others develop symptoms during the challenge because of the stress of undergoing a test for a drug they’re convinced they’re allergic to. (Yes, I just ended on a preposition, but it sounds better.)

But I was all for it. After 40 years, I wanted to be able to at least take penicillin again if I needed it, rather than settling for weaker alternatives.

So I went through the standard allergy tests and the penicillin challenge on one day, with the erythromycin challenge a couple of weeks later.

Well, guess what?

First of all, I found out that I am no longer allergic to dusts and mold, or even to trees. According to the tests, I’m still seriously reactive to grasses, but that’s it.

More significantly, I’m no longer allergic to cats!

And most importantly, I passed both the penicillin and the erythromycin challenges!

HOORAY!

“That opens up a whole new world for you,” my doctor told me. “Penicillin derivatives are really the go-to antibiotics. Now, for the first time in 40 years, you’ll have those terrific resources at your disposal.”

What an incredible discovery. And I’m so sad that my poor mother had to live a nearly antibiotic-free life, when most likely she had long outgrown her drug allergies.

So it would make me truly happy if just one of you, my readers, could benefit from this post. If you think you’re allergic to antibiotics, you’re probably not. Go take the challenge.

You’re welcome.

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Due to popular demand, I am including, at the end of each blog post, the latest random diary entries that I’ve been posting on Facebook for “Throwback Thursday.” These are all taken absolutely verbatim from the lengthy diaries I kept between 1970 and 1987.

February 18, 1977 [age 21]:

“Our Criminalistics Lab was really fun yesterday. We made moulage castings [some kind of hot plaster] of keys and coins and fingers. We had to slap hot moulage onto our fingers. Mine hurt so much that my finger shook. But the men were big babies! One guy had to run out of the room screaming, and another guy stayed in the lab but screamed his lungs out and tore the hot moulage off his finger in a frenzy!”

March 16, 1977 [age 21]:

“You know, I’m often ashamed of my studying abilities. I’ve gotten through school & college on memory ability, not on intelligence. I went to my Sociology class and Dr. Otten told me I had received the highest grade of all his Soc 70 classes which had taken the test. ‘How did you study?’ he asked (all this in front of the class) and I explained my ability to memorize almost anything. Tests reflect feedback, I said, rather than intelligence.”

March 23, 1977 [age 21]:

“I fretted about my oral report and nearly sweat blood all day – perspired so much I could actually smell myself. I downed four large gulps of straight whiskey before my report and made it through with only a few scattered chokes. Maybe God was just being good to me. I vowed never to sin again, ever.”