Allergist #2

I was so nervous in the waiting room of Allergist #2 that I couldn't read the book I had brought. Would he listen to me?

The staff were very nice and made me feel very comfortable.

The doctor seemed to take his time and listened to my story about corn allergies. After a brief examination, he ordered a corn skin prick to be done on my back.

And it was negative. Again. Of course.

So, he told me to go to Publix and buy a can of corn and anything else I had trouble eating.

When I returned, the nurse asked the doctor, "How much of this do you want her to eat?"

"The whole can."

<Wide eyes>

But I saw the crash cart, the spirometry, the various other equipment (like the door where the ambulance could pull up), and decided to go for it.

We did the oral challenge. The initial spirometry was beautiful-- I have great lungs. Then I took a tiny bite of corn, and another, and another.

With. No. Problems.

My brain was racing.... what the world??? How can I have all these problems with corn and not with actual corn??

I was almost to the end of the bowl when I had to stop eating. I was full. Craziness. Ending spirometry, also fine.

Then I had 1/2 tsp of powdered sugar.

"I'll come back to check on you in 15 minutes," said the doctor as I drank the cup.

"No, hang on a minute...Yep, reaction's starting."

I felt my lips and tongue going numb, my body became heavy, I got a headache, and just really felt cruddy.

The doctor looked all in my mouth, up my nose, all over, "I don't see anything."

*blink*

"Well, no. It's numbness-- there's nothing TO see," I answered.

"Mmmhmm," he began, and then he began to tell me how stressful my life was and recommended an anti-anxiety medication.

"No, this is unacceptable!" I said, "I've passed a blind challenge, it's not in my head!"

"But all that will ever happen is a little bit of numbness."

"You don't know that! You've already said that you don't know what's going on, and I get numb from 1/2 tsp of powdered sugar! What will happen if I get into more than that? You can't say that nothing will happen if you don't know what's going on."

"Well, we can always challenge again, you can eat more," he said, trying to leave the room.

"And prove what? If it's not a true IgE reaction and something that you can't explain goes wrong, how are you planning on getting me back? You haven't ruled out IgA, IgM, or atypical IgE reaction, you haven't ruled out a basophilic reaction or mastocytosis. You haven't ruled all this stuff out, so how can you say it's all stress?!" I was in tears at this point.

He stopped. I had touched a nerve. I waited.

"There's a test for mastocytosis. I'll order it. The only other thing I can do is send you to the University of South Florida."

So, I had blood drawn for the mastocytosis test (tryptase levels). It was normal and low enough that I didn't doubt the results. One more thing ruled out.

A very hard hard day, yes, and yet as frustrating as all this was, I had learned something extremely important:

IT WASN'T CORN.