gardening and allergies no joke be careful!

[heidihi]

My husband always says I am a wonderful nurse but a horrid patient ..it is true ...really I mean not so much do I think I am a wonderful nurse but I do try to be a very holistic and caring nurse ...I..my entire job evolves around keeping people at their best baseline and here myself do I listen to my own advice??? No I am a horrid patient

Well long story short ..I moved strawberries with grandson on Wed of last week...started to get sick ..wheezy ..itchy ...as of today have been sick for a week with terrible wheezing ..itching and a horrid head congestion pain ..swelling in my throat...this has gotten so bad I had to cave and actually go see a doctor myself ..I thought I was just sick with some wretched mutant virus.the four year old rubbed with his snot when he kissed me a billion times ... and treated myself as such lots of soup ...juice ..rest ..herbal teas...rest..and whining ...I even rigged myself a home made sweat lodge to try to fake a fever to get better..unfortunately my under the surface hives loved that and came to the surface and caused so much discomfort I actually ran out of mental clarity ..I am now on prednisone ..tons of benadryl and home for two more days sick

It was very scary at night not being able to breath and exhausting and depressing during the day not breathing ..work all around and I can not do a thing because i am so uncomfortable and short of breath I feel like I have emphysema .. I have never wheezed do not have asthma (or didn't) except when I got my flu shot too late one year and actually had already contracted a bad case of influenza ..did not surprise me at all after that how people died of epidemics and why they invented a vaccine ..but I digress

(I was not sure where to put this post so if it is in the wrong place please move it)

I believe this is a valid discussion for all gardeners but mainly for folks who garden with allergies! ... ..please be careful ...and please share tips for relief! and prevention ..more important prevention!!! The season for wheezin is upon us here but is coming to an area near you soon!!! No one is safe! ..our trees are shedding and we have rain but when the rain stops bouncing the pollen around like ping pong balls the trees and grass make more ..and the mold here is off the charts ...all over the country and world there are various threats to our over active immune systems..but worse the illness you can get can be a threat to that precious time we love so much in the garden! Normally mud boots would be on and I would be out there at least picking up!!! I can not even do that and it is pissing me off! ... so it is wise to continue to enjoy this wonderful lifestyle some of us have to obviously make concessions (this is for me too as I find it more real if I write it down!!!)

I am I know allergic for sure to mold and tree pollen ..but poo hoo'd it because "so what if my eyes itch and nose runs? right?" at least I rationalize it is not from smog (although here our air quality goes to crap rapidly) ..so what brought me to this point?

Even more embarrassing is I make a living off this subject!!!!
Half my job as a nurse requires me to be a credentialed allergy nurse ..so I should know better right? I give advice every single day about decreasing exposure to allergens helps for a better quality of life ..DUHHHHH!

advice includes ..take your medications as directed...wash your face and hair with a washcloth when you come in the house to get the pollens/spores off your face...and while you are out there wear a mask and avoid letting the stuff that causes you to react flow directly into your lungs

good advice! I will have to follow it now that is for sure ..after 20 years of giving this kind of advice ..staying up to standard ..knowing the latest ..I have to stop acting the fool listen my own voice ..or move my whole self to a sterile condo in the city and put a silk plant on the TV


Please be safe!!! . if you are allergic to weeds and grass take the precautions..there is some great allergy info online ..and a bunch of useless crap as well all know ..ask your family doctor for advice or see a naturopath they are great with allergies ...and of course there are allergists I work closely with four who I would be mortified if they found out how sick I am right now and why!!!

..allergies tend to worsen with natural exposure ..and that always confused me as I have given a ton of allergy shots in my career and know that works to desensitize people to allergens with increasing exposure ..so in my mind why not just garden and get over it right? WRONG!!! ..the more I research and attend classes and seminars the less I know really ...allergies are so flipping complicated that unlike chemistry and math once you get it you get it ..they just keep evolving and changing

I do believe very strongly in face washing and nettle tea and drink it a lot when the nettles appear just be careful where you harvest as they do pick up pollutants ..but I also will dutifully take an antihistamine and use eye drops ..were a mask and not risk this kind of crap ever again if I can help it!

please if you have tips share them!

for me now it will be compliance in all things ..I just missed a week of my life waiting for the next breath and writhing with itching ..not fun and makes Heidhi a very cranky woman!!!

[mnjrutherford]

I am VERY sorry to hear how rough you've had it! We have allergies as well but nothing near as bad as what you have gone through. Here's what we use:

Thyme Tea

1 1/4 c. good water
2 T. dried thyme leaves
1 c. local honey
1 c. lemon juice (store bought is ok)

Bring water to a boil in a small pot. When boiling, remove from heat and add thyme leaves. Cover and allow to steep for 10 minutes. Combine honey and lemon juice in a jar with a capacity of at least 3 cups. Strain thyme tea into the honey and lemon juice. Shake well to combine.
Dose: 2 T. every 2 to 3 waking hours for 2 days. For the wound, every 3 hours, for sniffles/allergies/colds, every 2 hours.

I've even cured tooth infections with this tea and I used it instead of prescription antibiotics when I sliced my wrist (instead of the intended bagel).

We also have serious reactions to poison oak/ivy/summac and we have a program of sorts for that:
1. Strip off clothes directly into washing machine
2. Warm shower using "environmentally friendly" dish soap. EF dish soap has the most surfactants so it is the best for lifting and removing the itch oils. Soap at least twice, head to toe.
3. Cetaphil lotion

[blueadzuki]

I'm not sure if this really counts since it's not about a allergy exactly (okay tecnically it is, but it's a sort of universal allergy or nearly universal).
Besides gardening (of course) one of the hobbies I engage in during the summer is raising caterpillars (I collect wild caterpillars during the summer) feed them, let them metamorposize, then release the resultant butterflied or moths. Anyway this story goes back to my days in colledge. Mu colledge had a lot more untouched ground around it than my home did the upshot of which was that there were a lot of caterpillars around there that I was not familiar. One day I happened to find some odd looking orange black and white caterpillars on some milkweed plants (I have since learned they were milkweed tussock moths, though at the time I though they were some odd sort of wooly bear). Well a few days later I was changing thier food and removing the frass (caterpillar poop) from their living container. This being in my colledged apartment (where there was not a lot of space. I was doing this while sitting on my bed and I put the spent leaves down there in prep for throwing them out. Well, that night after I had been in bed asleep for a few horst I woke with the worst itiching all over my body. Going to the bathroom I discovered to my shock that my whole body was covered with welts. It was this way that I discovered the concept of "urticating hairs" for the record this is the same sort of hairs that things like nettles have as do tarantualas. None of the species around my house were ones that had this so I never knew such things exisited Fortunatley the welts went down after a few hours and a change of sheets and pyjamas solved the rest. Needless to say I never tried to raise that kind of caterpillar again! (though there was another urticating around there I had to deal with as well, a white an black one (itching was less severe but lasted longer).

[mnjrutherford]

Good grief! That's what I call "more than the legal limit of fun!"