Luckily, virtually all the allergies fell away as I grew older except the ragweed allergies. Yes, good ol' hayfever. I remember taking this OTC shit called A.R.M. back in the seventies. It had antihistamines and decongestants that made me incredibly drowsy as well as super amped-up so I couldn't function well at all. It dried up my nasal passages so bad I'd get bloody noses.
But I needed something. My springtime pollen sensitivity decreased with age but by my mid-twenties, the first cold snap of fall would be a time to truly dread. Chronic and severe sneezing, often occurring in multiple machine-gun blasts as well as runny-nose, dry and itchy eyes and even fever and weakness only to be somewhat squelched by the then-preferred OTC med Benedryl which, for the purpose I still use it, just makes you want to crawl into bed and sleep, sleep, sleep.
I got prescription Claritin when it became available in the nineties but it too made me drowsy. What's more, I would only take it when I felt the onset of symptoms. Well by then it was too late. So I suffered.
I thought I'd just have to suffer with this scourge every year until my first fall after moving to Florida. Having a lot more plant-life here, I braced that autumn of '97 thinking I'd be in for a holy shitstorm of an allergy season. But nothing happened. not a sniffle. Apparently either the humidity or lack of really cold temps or the strain of the plants involved...whatever...it didn't trigger my allergy attacks.
And so I've lived in renewed clear-headed bliss year 'round for decades. Ah, the fine weather of Florida and my compatibility with its pollen spores. The annual dense green carpet of springtime pollen here didn't faze me a bit other than having to clean that shit off my car. And the fall season...a pleasant, beautiful, euphoria, cooler, sun-shinier (less T-storms) and drier...all without the slightest hint of allergies.
I've seen other northern transplants like myself go in the totally opposite direction. Mild or sometimes non-existent allergies when they lived up north to monster symptoms when they moved down here. My father was one of them. I used to chuckle at their dilemma and feel lucky about mine.
But then, about five years ago. Maybe it's climate change? Maybe it's northern strains of plants invading our flora biome? Maybe it's my physical condition, slowly worsening over the years? Who knows. All I know is the fall allergies started making a comeback. At first, mild varieties of the suffering of old. But last fall and, it seems, especially this year, I'm getting full-on resurgences of the devastating fits reminiscent of the mid-nineties.
Ragweed pollen is in the genus Ambrosia, but for me it's no food of the gods. It's the Devil's Dust. I'm currently at work but would love to be at home in bed. The Benedryl in my system is wearing off but the heightening allergy symptoms are surging in its place, also making me drowsy from the massive symptoms which tonight are joined by a ranging headache. Perhaps from all the sneezing, or the contraindication with my blood pressure meds...something I didn't have in the old days.
The end of a good nearly two decade run. I guess I should consider myself fortunate to have gotten away with that. It doesn't make me feel any better though. Not one....
*AHHHHHCHOOO-OOO-OOO!
...bit. *SNIFFLE.