My Allergy Journey: The Halfway Point
I’ve reached the halfway point! After a couple of months of food challenges that desensitized me to half a dozen light to moderate allergies, I started the serious part in mid-December. Today is my seventh of 13 Oral Immunotherapy (IOT) treatments. I’m past the halfway point!
I’ve been carefully weighing out my daily doses of less than two grams of allergens, using a jewelry scale supplied by the Latitude clinic, for the last two weeks. Today, we doubled the dose again. It’s still a small dose—it gets lost when mixed into the applesauce, and I don’t taste it yet.
A Purim Like I’ve Never Had Before
A few months ago, a food challenges desensitized me and allowed me to eat Hazelnuts (see my post “Feel the Fear and Chew It Anyway). I’m looking forward to a Purim where I can eat many of the foods I’ve had to avoid in the past—including Nutella Hamentaschen. In previous years, my Synagogue distributed Purim baskets filled with goodies, usually with a theme. One year, the theme was nuts. I couldn’t eat a thing, which was disappointing. I had to give the contents away, then have a conversation with the organizers. I pointed out the facts that some congregants were allergic to nuts, and that all events in the building had to be nut free.
How I Weigh My Dose
The old way: I’d take out a flat mini-spoon of the allergen powder and sprinkle it into a spoonful of applesauce.
The new way: Using the larger mini-spoon, I’d place the powder on a jewelry scale, and add or subtract until the amount was in the dose range. Accuracy has to be within five 100ths of a gram!
Fortunately, years of measuring chemicals in the darkroom trained me well: I hit the measurement target precisely the first time I measured out the amount. The nurse who showed me how to do it was impressed.
Street Photos: It Was a Good Day
I was rather pleased with this day's photos. What do you think?
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