I've had chronic sinus infections for a while now and finally decided to see an ENT about it. I met him on Friday and he started me on a steroid nasal spray and scheduled me for an allergy test on Monday. Today was Monday (I realize that this is being posted on Tuesday, I stayed up too late)
I went to the doctor's office this morning for my 9am appointment. I wore a t-shirt because I was assuming I'd have the 'scratch test' I'd heard about from other people, and t-shirts are soft and potentially kind to itchy backs. While I'm glad I wore a t-shirt, I was wrong about how the test would go down. I don't know exactly how a 'scratch test' works when it involves one's back, but I doubt it is worse than what they did to me today.
At first it was nothing terrible. There is a six pronged device that sits in oily stuff,
they sectioned off my left arm into four quadrants and pushed the prongs into my skin. It didn't hurt at all, it felt like someone pressing their nails against your skin, but not pinching or anything, just pressure. Honestly my thought was, "this thing would make a great back scratcher!"
Then I sat in the chair for 20 minutes while the oily stuff dripped down my arm, waiting for something to start to itch. No itching. Not even a twinge of itch.
I thought, "great! no allergies, guess that is settled." WRONG
My left arm got it easy, then it was the right arm's turn. I promise I am not exaggerating any of the numbers in this next part.
The nurse came in with 4 trays of little bottles, each with 4 rows and 10 columns. Then she opened the box of syringes...and pulled out 33 of them. She uncapped 33 syringes and placed one in each of the orange capped bottles (containing the second highest dose of allergens for each of 33 likely suspects).
Then I lifted the sleeve on my right arm and she wrote 33 different codes in two rows down the side of my upper arm, between my shoulder and elbow.
One by one, she stuck me with each syringe containing each allergen until I had what looked like 33 (bleeding!) mosquito bites in perfect rows down my arm.
I'm not one to get light headed or nauseous around needles, I often give blood and get yearly flu shots. But 2 minutes after she finished sticking me I was seeing spots and loosing my hearing at an alarming rate.
The nice nurse (to her credit, she was very nice the entire time and was pretty good at sticking me with minimal pain) brought me two cookies and a cup of water and had me lay down for the 10 minutes required to get the test results.
After 10 minutes they moved me to another room where I would see the doctor. The doctor whom I had told on Friday that I don't have allergies, and that even if I did I had tried taking Clariten and it had not worked. He was shocked that I had shown ZERO signs of allergies to ANYTHING. So surprised that he asked that I show him my mangled right arm, and he looked even more surprised to see that the test results were correct and I still showed no signs of an allergic reaction.
***I would have inserted a picture here of what my arm looked like, but no one puts pictures of nonallergic people on the Internet and my phone doesn't have a camera. Just imagine 33 bleeding mosquito bites in rows down my right arm.***
Anyway, I'm still trying the nasal spray and I have a follow up appointment in a month.
I hope that none of you ever has to have an allergy test, or if you do, I hope that it gives you a result that will address your issue.
There isn't a better way to start your morning that to be stuck with 33 needles only to be told that you are the picture of health! (all the while blowing your nose due to your ongoing sinus issues)
*disclaimer: I was more than polite to all nursing staff and the doctor, not once did I say "I told you so" or "come on, we all know this is a structural problem, just order the damn CT!"*
**however, if I go back in a month and they don't order the CT, I'm saying it. loudly.**
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