Allergies

I spent several hours in the hospital last night. It was a strange experience.

Tim and I were out at a dance party, we've been taking ballroom dancing for a couple of months now and every so often the dance studio hosts a party. So we were there enjoying the evening, or at least trying to. I hadn't been feeling well all evening, something about dinner just didn't sit well in my stomach.

About halfway through the evening I popped a tums in my mouth because I really was feeling yucky and wanted to enjoy the night. About five minutes later my hands started to feel all warm and kind've stiff. I looked at them and realised they were swelling. Then I noticed that my lip began to tingle and then the inside of my mouth. I realised I was having an allergic reaction and told Tim we had to go right away.

Thankfully there's a hospital about 5 minutes away from where we were, because by the time we got to the hospital, my lips were thick, my tongue was thick, my whole face was swollen and red and it was spreading down my neck and on to my shoulders.

Within half an hour almost my entire body was covered in raised, red hives, my face, ears, eyes and nose were all swollen and I was having trouble swallowing. The doctor and nurses were excellent, they got me attached to an IV pretty quickly and started pumping me full of prednisone and benadryl.

It's amazing how this happens, I don't completely understand it. Your body turns against itself almost. It's scary. This is only the second time in my entire life I've had an allergic reaction, and this time was quite a bit worse than the first time it happened almost 3 years ago.

What worries me though is what triggered it. I ate a tums from a roll of tums that I've been carrying around in my purse for months and have eaten multiple times in the past. The last time this happened it was from a generic gravol product. I went through a whole bunch of allergy testing last year and they didn't figure out what made me react then. I'm hoping they have more success this time.

In the meantime, I'm all doped up on prednisone and benadryl for the next few days to keep everything under control....guess I'll be investing in an epipen.....