So last Tuesday (May 25) I woke up, had a very normal morning. Off to teach! While signing in I started to notice a little shadow under my eye. So I went to the bathroom and checked my eye. I could see it was about to start it's usual swelling process. I taught my two classes and watched as my face began to swell bigger and bigger. By the end of the class my face looked like the first picture to the left. Ironically my face stopped swelling all on its own, with taking just one claritin. Furthermore the swelling didn't get any worse that what the image shows.

Then this past weekend I headed to Vancouver to visit with friends and to attend a wedding. The weekend was rainy but lovely. I stayed away from the stronger allergens but did expose myself to the mild allergens. As I've reintroduced myself to these without a flare up I figured it was ok. So a little cheese, chocolate, pasta and bread. I also had wine and some cosmos during the event. I won't pretend that I wasn't feeling a little festive but I did wake up without a hangover and enjoyed the day without hives and without incident.

However around 6pm I noticed some discomfort around my eye and asked if there was a bump. Then when I looked into my reflection I saw what was about to begin all over again.
I had a claritin hoping it would slow the process but by the end of the evening my right eye was very swollen. By the next morning my left eye was swollen as well.


I flew home and went straight to the Urgent Care where they observed me for the better part of the day. They also drew yet again more blood work but the cbc showed no irregularities and I`d have to wait for the rest of the results. I requested to be screened again for lupus (which was screened negatively before) and to also screen for Lyme Disease.

They gave me 50mg IM of Benedryl and were ready to release me even though my face looked like monster. I asked when the swelling would go down and the doctor responded an hour after injection. Since it had already been 90 minutes I asked if she could prescribe something else to help remove the swelling since the benedryl was clearly not enough. I was prescribed 50 mg of prednisone and 10 mg of Singulair.


I continue on Prednisone, Singulair and Benedryl and as of 9:30pm today not all the swelling is out of my system. I'll definitely need another day to recover.
Here is a picture of me 24hrs after 2 X 50 Mg of Benedryl and 50 mg of Prednisone.