State of being

[bobquasit]

I never followed up on my post last Friday about going to the doctor. As usual, I literally did not get to sit down when I arrived for my appointment; I checked in, went to the waiting room, picked up a magazine, and was just about to sit down and leaf through it when my doctor came through the door and called me in.

That still amazes me.

Anyway, she checked me out. Her conclusion: a sinus infection was possible, but she was more inclined to suspect allergies, since the pollen situation has been so bad this spring. She prescribed Allegra and a prescription painkiller of some kind.

I've been taking the Allegra for one week as of today (that's how long she said it would take to work - one to two weeks), and I'm sorry to say that so far it hasn't don't anything. I really had my hopes up, but so far, no luck.

As for the painkiller, it didn't help either; the redhead gene strikes again, I guess. So I took ibuprofen instead, as needed.

One bit of good news: she took my blood pressure, and it was 130/82 despite the considerable pain that I was in. That's excellent.

Comments

[zarhooie.livejournal.com]

Call back in a week if things haven't improved and request Z-max. http://www.pfizer.com/pfizer/are/news_releases/2005pr/mn_2005_0613c.jsp

[nakedfaery.livejournal.com]

The pollen is really terrible this year, I'm glad I'm not the only one that has noticed. It's also interesting to realise that it's a phenomenon that is not just confined to the UK.

I used to get hayfever all the time when I was younger, but I haven't really had more than the odd sniffle for years now. This summer is going to be different though. My eyes are stuck together in the morning, my nose and eyes are constantly streaming and my skin itches. :sighs:

I hope you improve soon, hayfever can be awful! I take something called neoclarityn which seems to do the trick quite well. It also serves to eliminate the urticaria rash I get when I get too hot/cold.

[lubedpumpkin.livejournal.com]

"the redhead gene strikes again, I guess"

??

[ckd]

IIRC, there's a correlation between redheadedness-not-from-bottle and different reactions to analgesics and/or anesthesia, including requiring higher doses to get the same painkilling effect. Here's one reference I found.

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

Right, yes, thank you for digging that up. There's also some info on Wikipedia, of course.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_hair

I find it interesting that red hair is apparently one of the few traits linked to a contra-survival effect, i.e. increased susceptibility to skin cancer. I read an article that said that scientists were trying to figure out why red hair hadn't been eliminated from the human race; some speculated that it was because redheads were more sexually desireable.

Damn right!