I’ve made it to the red vial in my allergy shot series, that’s the one where the serum is not diluted. As it’s much more potent the risk of a reaction goes up drastically. Towards the end of the last vial (1:10 solution) I started noticing a small welt after my shot that I discussed with the staff at the allergy clinic and it was nothing to worry about, as long as it’s less than two inches in diameter.

Monday I got my shot and waited the standard 20 minutes for a reaction, I felt a small bump on my right arm (the one that includes birch, my strongest allergy) but it wasn’t very big so I went home. Within an hour it was more than two inches in diameter so I took some Benadryl, within another hour it looked like a tennis ball was trying to push it’s way out of my arm. By the morning the swelling had gone down by about 50%, but I called the allergy clinic. The nurse suggested I take Benadryl and Ibuprofen, half of which I was already doing and the doctor himself called me back two hours later. We’re repeating last week’s dose and he gave me some samples of Singulair to take in addition to the Zyrtec on shot days.

The other factor the doctor brought up was the current extremely high pollen count (over 1000), some of the highest of which are the pollens I’m most allergic to. That alone would already have my immune system working harder and add in the high concentration shot I received and it would make sense that it could easily go overboard, which it did.

The swelling has almost gone away, but spending two days on Bendryl is quite exhausting.