August 2014 - On 28th of August 2014 I went to an expert allergist: Dr. Renders at the Jan Palfijn Hospital in Ghent, Belgium. The treatment is called EPD and it involves several subcutaneous (subdermal) injections containing a special mix of allergens.
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| picture of a subcutaneous (subdermal) injection. |
I must say, I was a bit skeptical. It works on only 20% of all patients and the injections are only produced in the United Kingdom. But hey, what did I have to loose? A lot, apparently...
They advise you to remove anything from your home that might cause an allergic reaction. That meant I had to remove all curtains from my home (my wife wasn't really a big fan of that). But after removing them, I felt a lot better. (note from future me: I recently discovered my curtains were made of polyester)
So anyway, I went on with the first injection. The first days I felt ok, but that might had to do with the fact that I had no curtains anymore...
But after a week, things got really bad. My right eye (the one that itches), started itching more and more. Even my left eye started itching. It's hard to describe, but it felt like both of my eyes were full of dust! The only way to stop this feeling, was taking of my glasses (plastic frames).
I asked Dr. Renders for help, but the only thing he could think of was to first figure out what exactly it is I'm allergic to. He talked about experiments where people were put in a clean room while they bring in specific allergens to test what the patient is allergic to. He said I could start with a patch test at his hospital. But frankly I had seen enough doctors. I wanted to give it a rest.
There and then, I realized something very important:I was allergic to plastics!
It seems like the only glasses I can wear now are one my first pair of glasses, dating back from the year 2000. We'll see what happens.
I must say, I hate that I underwent this treatment, but then again, it gave me certainty that I'm allergic to plastics.
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