Allergy Testing

I went in for my allergy testing on December 17. I met with Dr. Lucas for over half an hour. He asked me for the whole story, going all the way back to the beginning. He didn't know what he was asking for! So I kept going on, he'd ask questions, think we were done, then I went on, and we repeated this for at least half an hour. Because I've had regular testing before, he didn't want to waste "real estate" on my back, and decided to focus on just testing food. You know you're in for a treat when the doc starts talking about not having enough "real estate" on your back for all the testing he wants to do. Sigh.

The nurse came in with a tray of about 70 vials of food substances they were going to test me for. This also equates to what I thought would be 70 tiny needles to break the skin with. Now, I should have known it wouldn't be that easy, as most things aren't. So she starts breaking my skin and I swear I kept hearing a weird crunch sound every time she pressed down. And it really felt unpleasant, more so than the needles I've had before. I had to stay put for 15 minutes, which isn't fun in the first place when your gown is laying open in the doctor's office, but even worse when you want to scratch your back off. I swear every one of those things was going to show up positive and would show all the foods I was allergic to. Now wouldn't you know that not a single one of them showed a positive result except the one that was supposed to??!! Well, that stinking figures. I was at a rare speechless spot.

He decided to run an extra test for hops as he wasn't sure if it was reacting. The nurse came back in to do the test on my forarm since my back was used, abused, and done with it all. And I saw why it crunched when she broke my skin. They didn't use needles, they used these tiny cookie cutter shaped torture deviced. A perfect, tiny little circle instead of just a needle prick. Good lord. It took a two weeks for those suckers to fully heel. And hops came back negative. sigh.

Dr. Lucas came in and had a few things he wanted me to do as he's not convinced (???) it's food allergies, but said he has a lot of stones to turn over with me. Because my symptoms and reactions are so "unique" (read, I'm a bizarre weirdo) he's going to be very thorough so I really appreciate that. I've heard he's really good and I really saw that in how closely he listened and by the questions he asked. Of course, that didn't give e an answer for anything, but hey, it's a start.

He is sending me to a gastroenterologist and a rheumatoidologist. More ologists to add to the list. He wants the GI doc to look into something like eosinophil disorders, which sounds like a type of white blood cell gone wild where it shouldn't in the lining of your mouth through your intestinal tract. This is very rare, so I'm doubtful. And the rheumatoidologist because my finger joints burn and get really stiff when I eat certain foods. We'll see.

Anyhoo, it was off to Iowa for the holidays at this point :)