i have 'issues'

Sitting in Starbucks today with my good friend and coworker, Heather...munching on a sandwich picked from their cooler while sipping on an iced grande vanilla latte (that I paid for with a gift card, score!)...everything was going great. It was nice to get out of the ol' office building for a bit, and it is simply gorgeous outside today. Then I felt it. A chill went down my arms....and I thought--NO, not again! I willed myself to CALM DOWN. DO NOT FREAK (speaking to myself in all caps is not very comforting, not surprisingly)....I stopped eating my sandwich and offered the rest to Heather. She was like..umm.no thanks? I took a few more calming breaths and began to explain why I had a bit of a wild look in my eye and seemed a bit twitchy...allergies. Specifically--food allergies. That I probably don't have. But that I possibly 'could' have,but haven't gotten tested for.

It all started back in college--I was taking some prescribed pain medication, only taking it when necessary...and not noticing until much later that a pattern was developing. Each time I took these pills I broke out in hives...combined with nausea, vomiting, blacking out and every time it happened, it got worse. But because I took these pills so rarely it took me a while to realize what was causing it. Once I figured it out--bingo--I stopped taking them and problem solved, right? Well, it turns out that they are part of the ibuprofen family--meaning I can't take anything like advil, alleve, midol...etc. Nothing with naproxen/naprofen in it. I've ended up in the emergency room twice after accidentally taking some products that contain what I'm allergic to, so--it's really not pleasant and now I know what the opening symptoms feel like. So any time that I now get even a whiff of that feeling-I start freaking out. And even if I'm not really having an allergic reaction, I still feel as if I'm having one because my brain is telling me--yes, you're having one!!!

So that's where we were today at Starbucks..Heather found it all very interesting and said I should blog about it..so I am. So, what do you think? Am I crazy? Developing some weird food allergies now? Was it the sesame seeds in the bread maybe? Don't they develop drugs from seeds? Maybe I should research the origin of the drugs I'm allergic to? Maybe I should see a psychologist/psychiatrist/counselor/etc..?

I stopped eating the sandwich while at Starbucks but brought it back to the office with me and just a few minutes ago I finished eating it. So far so good. Maybe I can stop the psychosomatic allergies and just concentrate on the real ones!