PORTRAIT OF AN ALLERGY SUFFERER: MY STORY
My own allergy story, like most others, began in childhood. I was dogged by skin rashes and a perennially stuffy nose that deteriorated into three to four severe month long head colds every year. I can still vividly remember going to school with various coloured creams on my lace and being teased by the other kids.
I also suffered from a nervous squint which turned to rapid blinking when I was under stress, such as facing a fast ball at cricket or facing the teacher over some misdemeanour. I suffered from periodic attacks of anxiety that left me depressed. Because I considered this to be normal I never mentioned it to anyone.
By the time I reached high school I'd added severe acne to the rashes that came and went from my face, chest, back and arms. Antibiotics and various creams were prescribed (or the acne. The antibiotics always made me feel off colour and after some time on them I began to suffer from an anal itch, that I was more nervous than before and that I had trouble concentrating in class and remembering what I had studied. My stuffy nose was still a problem and my acne wasn't that much better.
By the age of eighteen I was fed up. My skin and nose were no better and I seemed to spend all my time studying to achieve the same marks my mates were getting with half the effort. My acne had given me an inferiority complex and I couldn't talk to girls without the nervous blinking. My doctor told me I had a periodic allergy and prescribed antihistamines to be taken whenever my skin flared up or my nose became unbearably stuffy. I was told that my allergies were something that I just had to live with.
*3/18/9*
