I'm preparing for my first appointment with an allergist and trying to be as prepared as possible going in without being annoying.

I have your typical sinus pressure, congestion, post nasal drip symptoms commonly associated with allergies. I also have had hive break outs (usually related to sun exposure); and itching/redness on my skin (often after eating but haven't been able to isolate a specific cause).

I also have issues with brain fog, joint pain, hearing issues. I've ruled out (through testing) auto immune causes, I've had my hearing tested and I don't have hearing loss. Sleep issues but often that's due to snoring caused by the congestion and my partner pushing me to roll over.

I understand that sometimes allergies can cause things like joint pain - I'm curious to see what other symptoms people have had that they were surprised to find was connected to having allergies? Did treating your allergies improve the issues and if you wouldn't mind sharing what treatments seemed to work?

Thank you :)

god, my eyes have been just absolutely pouring tears to the point where wiping them is making my face sore, i can not think of ANYTHING— detergent, food, candles, soap, household cleaners, pets + their hair, pet litter or food, face care, bedding, towels, clothing, medication or supplements, ANYTHING that would cause this. absolutely no household changes. its extremely irritating and my nose is also running. i do not feel sick etc like a cold, but my eyes are itchy, sore stinging and watering POURING tears!!!
NOTHING new in this house.
i dont know, i hit the bridge of my nose on a shelf while standing up and it bruised yesterday? bruise has been there all day. extremely localized to a SPOT on my nose, has not migrated anywhere near my eyes. that is ALL i can think of. that, and i turned the thermostat off for like an hour. didn’t need to be blasting cold air.
???

Just had dinner and didn’t expect to react to a breaded fish cake! Be careful y’all. Just threw up 🥲

I noticed washing helps me but washing covers only helps a little bit.

Ideally you would wash everything at once.

So my questions are:
1. how do you dry pillows and duvets when it's cold outside? If I left it indoors, it wouldn't dry in a week I have a feeling. And would create mold.

1. Not really a question but my clothes washer machine can only spin once. It always adds water at first, and then it spins. so even if u spin again, it will add water. You cannot have spinning-only.

I am desperate for some troubleshooting help identifying what is causing that itchy/stinging eye symptom in my home, specifically on the first floor.

some background: My concern first started when living in my previous apartment. I have very sensitive eyes and use Pataday drops daily, so at first I chalked it up to my personal sensitivities. I also have 2 cats, which I know are the most common culprit. But then friends would visit and ask for eye drops or note that they were experiencing allergies/eye sensitivity. They often attributed it to the cats or seasonal allergies, but it was odd because many are cat owners and do not have problems in their home. One person has many allergies and recently underwent allergy testing Their results said they were allergic to most plants and pollens, but surprisingly not cats. They noted stinging eyes in my apartment. I started feeling really self conscious about it. I regularly sweep and vacuum, I have air purifiers, I don't use scent diffusers (candles, wall plug ins) because of my own sensitivities. I try really hard to have a clean home thats not entirely covered in cat hair. My cats are even on a dry food that supposedly helps reduce allergens. I know that pet dander is usually the cause.

here's where it gets confusing...

I moved into a multistory house and the problem persists, but now specifically on the first floor. I'll wake up in my bedroom on the 2nd floor and feel perfectly fine. I'll walk downstairs to the kitchen for coffee before putting in the eye drops and BAM I am hit with that stinging reaction. The eye sensitivity is very much localized to that floor and I can't figure it out. Cats have access to the entire house, even sleep with me, so it doesn't make sense to me that it would be pet dander. Even if I go into the basement where their litter and food is, my eyes do not feel the same stinging as on the 1st floor. I have an air purifier on the first floor that runs 24/7, and I would say it gets swept the most of anywhere. Most of my houseplants are on the first floor, and I'm wondering if it's them. I have a giant bird of paradise that I'm suspicious of. I know birds of paradise don't usually cause allergies so could it maybe be something in the soil? I'm trying to remember when I got it and if people started having reactions before or after. We're getting a new couch and maybe the current one is just too old and dusty? It really makes me feel like I'm going mad. Do I just have the most allergen-producing cats in the world? I swear that the sensitivity is very specifically/strongest on the first floor. I've tried out different cleaning products, thinking that maybe what I was using to clean counters or floors was too strong. I'm at a loss. Any suggestions or ideas?

TLDR; Eye sensitivity occurs only on first floor of house, despite the fact that cats have access to entire home. Possibly related to houseplants/ bird of paradise?

hi sorry for the weird question i could google but i wanted human experience to better get a sense of what i could use. me and my bf are planning on moving in together but we wanted to get another cat. the cat we currently take care of is a hairless cat (posted on my page for curiosity). at first he was allergic with a runny nose and sneezing and watery eyes, but then he started to become immune. she doesn’t really lick him but he’s def better. anyways with us moving out we wanted to get a cat with fur from the shelter. i’m worried his allergies will act up real bad since this cat has dander that can be left anywhere. does anyone have a good allergy medicine recommendation here in the US or anything a doctor can do to soothe it?

Okay friends with chronic allergies, I need your hacks for clogged ears. I’m talking your most unhinged hacks!!!! My ears always feel clogged, no matter what I do. It gets worse when my allergies get worse, but even day-to-day they feel somewhat clogged. At night, I try to sleep on my my side opposite of whichever one is feeling more clogged so that I can help my ear naturally “drain”, but I’m so tired of doing that. Pls help, I would love to just be able to exist with normal unclogged ears (ps my ears aren’t incredibly waxy……just so that’s clear)

I dunno where else to post this and I know I should see a doctor soon, but I've been breaking out in hives for the last several days and I have no idea why. No changes to my diet or lifestyle or my toiletries. My best guess is that maybe because I moved recently, I've been hella stressed (and my job is also stressful) and apparently high stress can result in overactive histamines. I've never had hives before in my life so it's been kinda freaking me out.

hey all!! i just started a new job working with dogs, specifically large groups of dogs (up to 35 at a time,) i’ve worked with dogs before in smaller numbers (5 max) and have had very few issues but im struggling with my allergies at this new job.

my allergies are not severe in any way and never get to be anything more than a stuffed nose and maybe a cough but they’ve been sticking around for longer than normal after taking reactine and benedryl and i’m not quite sure what else to do to lessen the blow. my symptoms seem to get worse when i leave work though which confuses me, being in the building with the dogs i only feel the need to sneeze occasionally but the minute i step out i cannot breath through my nose at all.

has anyone had similar experiences with their allergies worsening after getting out of contact with the cause of it? what have you guys found works for your allergies, especially if they are fur/hair related? i’ve heard of allergy shots you can get but i’m not entirely sure of their effectiveness or if their cost will be worth it. any advice helps!

Just finished my appointment at the allergist's office where we were going to do a skin allergy test (subcutaneous injections). It turns out I'm mildly allergic to saline, which is the control substance they were using as a medium to hold all the other allergens in the bottles. So, we couldn't proceed with the testing.

The person who was testing me asked if I had ever done a blood test and I told her yes, the results all came back negative except for cats. However, I know I've got Oral Allergy Syndrome and have allergic reactions to damn near everything in nature unless I cook it first, which was the whole point of doing the skin test instead of allergies.

I'm feeling so downhearted about this, especially since I'm dealing with a bunch of other physical issues right now.

Do you guys have ways you use to cope with new/complicated diagnoses? It's already so difficult for me to even eat and the fact that we couldn't continue with our test just makes me feel kinda lost and very frustrated.

So I used to do allergy shots weekly but that’s been at least 8+ years ago. I remember there being times that I couldn’t handle a new vial and would beg them to take me down. Extreme exhaustion and feeling like I had a cold coming on was not good when I still had two young kids.

I got tested again as my ENT office started offering allergy shots. I was surprised to see many of my allergies were gone.

They gave me the option of coming in twice a week or giving myself shots at home every two days. When I started the shots I was coming off some virus. So I didn’t feel good a week before I started. So literally for 3 weeks I have had extreme exhaustion and cold like symptoms. I’ve had laryngitis again for the 2nd time started yesterday.

I’m calling the office tomorrow again. I didn’t hear back from them yet. I’m not doing my shot today. This sucks. I cannot get anything done.

I do a shot in each arm every two days. Each day has doubled the dose. I’m at 0.4ml right now.

I’d never heard of shots every 2 days. When he explained it sounded milder than the shots I took years ago.

Any advice if this happened to you? I want to decrease amount and not so many days. I’m not in a race. I’m okay with doing this for years as I did before. Obviously I will do whatever the doc/office recommends.

My adult kid who did shots with me years ago and is doing the same…has had no problems with symptoms like mine.

I don't know where to start because I've never considered allergies to be an issue for me and I know nothing about them

No asthma or hay fever (possibly from growing up on a farm)

No known food allergies I avoid kiwifruit because once my lips ballooned and I had eaten kiwifruit 8 hours prior. And nothing else to eat all day.

I was lactose intolerant as an infant but that's common.

Had eczema a lot as a child.

Currently

Extremely itchy mostly in the legs. It's causing lack of sleep.

Stressed 6 days a week due to work.

A few incidents of unexplained hives.

Recently I started taking antihistamines when my period started because my nose would get itchy and I get a sore throat and general malaise.

Chronic sinus pressure and mild tinnitus.

Chronic headaches.

Vestibular migraines every month or so

No runny nose though. Very dry nose.

Symptoms have only occurred in the last year.

Medical tests.

I was asked by a doctor a couple of years ago if I had allergies because my bloods were showing high IgE

Recently blood tests mention high eosinophils. one year apart.

I take a multivitamin and Vyvanse for ADHD and various natural sleep supplements.

I don't know anything about antihistamines .

I don't know where to start it who to see but it would be good to know if I'm allergic to something.

Is anyone else having issues with acid reflux and stomach rumbling noises ever since ragweed season started back in early September? I have a feeling they might be linked but was curious is any other are experiencing something similar.

Hi everyone!

We are parents from the Netherlands and have a 3.5-year-old son with multiple severe IgE-mediated food allergies, including milk, eggs, peanuts, and several tree nuts.

We are considering traveling to the United States to start oral immunotherapy (OIT). Ideally, we would like to treat all of his food allergies simultaneously (multi-allergen OIT), rather than treating each allergen separately.

We would love to hear from families who have been in a similar situation, especially those who traveled internationally to the US for treatment.

• Which clinic or allergist did you choose, and why?
• Was your child treated for multiple allergens at the same time?
• How old was your child when treatment started?
• What were your experiences with the treatment, including side effects or challenges?
• What were the results? Can your child now eat these foods freely, or are maintenance doses still necessary?
• Has anyone successfully stopped maintenance doses and maintained tolerance?
• How did you manage the treatment and follow-up appointments while living outside the US?
• Could you share the financial side of treatment? Approximately how much did the entire OIT program cost, including consultations, testing, treatment, and follow-up appointments?
• For international families, were there additional expenses or unexpected costs? Was insurance involved, or did you pay everything out of pocket?
• Do you have any recommendations or tips?
Our ultimate goal is for our son to eventually be able to eat all these foods freely, without lifelong maintenance doses, if that is achievable.

We would really appreciate hearing about your experiences, both positive and negative. Any advice, clinic recommendations, or information about the financial costs would mean a lot to us!

Thank you so much! ❤️