So we all know that I'm very, very, very allergic to certain medications. If you were somehow unaware of this well...now you know. Several of the medications I'm allergic to are completely normal allergies like penicillin. Other medications I'm allergic to are less normal like oxycontin. Then there are a few that make the list that make zero sense as to how I'm allergic to them. Case in point: prednisone. This is a medication that is indigenous. There should be no possible way to be allergic to it. It's even the medication they give in the ER for someone having an allergic reaction.
Somehow though my body has managed to be allergic to it. Not just kind of allergic or mildly allergic to it. Oh no it's one of my if I take this medicine I will die allergies. If you think I'm kidding just ask my parent's about the last time I was given a predisone. It's not even that I'm allergic to just one form of it. Nope I'm allergic to every possible form in the entire predisone family. I've had it orally in tablet and liquid form. I've even had it in my IV before. I reacted to every single kind and badly.
Because of this uniqueness my pharmacy red flags any and all steroids. My pharmacists takes me even trying something steroidal very seriously. On that note my allergist really wanted me to try Flonase. Well Flonase is a corticosteroid. This meant that the pharmacy plays phone tag with me and the doctor's office. First they call the doctor's office to make sure they know I'm allergic to steroids and ask if there is an alternative medicine that I could be prescribed. They then call me to make sure I know this medication is red flagged as either a known allergy or a very very very likely allergy.
In the case of Flonase the possible benefits if it worked would be huge. Therefore we weighed the risks and went ahead with it. My pharmacist spoke to me when I picked the medicine up. She explained to take a tiny tester dose with an epipen at the ready. She made sure I knew what to do if I went into anaphylactic shock. She really didn't want to give me the medicine but as an adult I'm allowed to make those kinds of potentially stupid decisions. Well to absolutely no one's surprise I reacted badly to the Flonase. An epipen, breathing treatments, benadryl, rescue inhaler, and 3 kinds of itch cream later I'm returning to normal. I even got to skip going to the ER. I know I'm such a rebel not going to the ER after taking an epipen. Unfortunately that means that steroids continue to be a huge NO-NO.
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