Did Being In Hospital Trigger My Hay Fever?
I have just watched an item on Country File about hay fever.
I think now, that I’ve always sufffered from Hay fever and it was probably the reason why, I had such a bad school attendance record. I can remember in my first year at Minchenden, I virtually missed the whole of the second term.
But looking back, I’ve always suffered a little bit each year and can remember feeling better after I went on a gluten-free diet. But in the spring, I’ve often suffered an itchy bottom , sneezing and other hay fever like symptoms. C always said that I used to sneeze three times, then turn over before I went to sleep. I don’t do that now.
After she died, I changed small things in my lifestyle. For a start, I started to sleep in a totally closed room, whereas she had often kept a window open. I have always had a thing about draughts and thus, I always kept the house closed. The house was probably cleaner too, as now there was only one person living in it. I was also only down to one dog and she spent a lot of time with my secretary’s pack. So perhaps, I was living in too clean an atmosphere. Remember, I was usually driving a Jaguar with an efficient pollen filtering system. I didn’t go for too many walks in the countryside either.
Over the last three years or so, I have got the symptoms of hay fever of a runny nose, leg pains and lethargy and could it be caused because I’m not giving myself exposure to pollen in a graduated way. At one time, I was going to the continent a lot and was suffering badly. I put it down to different pollens in the two locations.
Then last year, just as the pollen was coming into season in the UK, I started on my trip around the world and had the stroke in Hong Kong.
There and when I returned to the UK, I was in an air-conditioned and hopefully sterile hospital, so my pollen defences weren’t aroused in the usual way as they are each season.
I now believe that the high pain I suffered last year was nothing more than a severe reaction to the pollen.
Let’s hope I’m on the right track, as if so, some simple immunotherapy might just sort it out. Especially, if Country File’s expert was right about how sometimes a too sterile environment makes hay fever worse.
The Anonymous Widower 
That last comment makes sense, once people with CD are GF the tiniest bit of gluten can cause a really bad reaction.
Comment by liz | July 17, 2011 |
Not with me! I don’t gluten myself, but in the last ten years since I’ve been gluten-free I have made the odd small mistake and the results weren’t too bad. But then I’m not supersentive in any way.
In one particular incident in Montreal, I asked if the chips were real ones. It was only afterwards, the waitress asked me if I liked the oven chips, which are considered real ones in North America. I did get the runs, but that was all I got. In fact that’s all small amounts of gluten do for me. Although, I think histamines do the same things for me.
Remember, I was picked up as a coeliac by a blood test, which showed I had very low B12 levels. I wasn’t feeling that much better, so I went to see a specialist at Addenbrookes, where I was diagnosed by a blood test as a coeliac. This was then confirmed by endoscopy. I felt a lot better immediately on a gluten-free diet and my chronic dandruff and almost permanent runs disappeared.
Comment by AnonW | July 17, 2011 |