One day before starting SLIT, I tested the strength of my normal allergic reactions. I played with my cat for fifteen minutes, petting her to send her shed fur in the air and keeping my face at most a foot away from her. Here are the symptoms I noticed, as well as when I began to notice them and when they started to fade away:
0:00- Start playing with cat
6:30- Nose begins to itch
8:00- Nose starts running, becomes congested
13:15- Sneeze four times
15:00- Stop playing with cat
21:30- Nose still itchy, congested
25:00- Sneeze four times
27:50- Nose stops itching
36:00- Sneeze four times
~5:00:00- Congestion stops
There were some problems that I ran into. The first was that my cat, being hyper and having an attention span of two milliseconds, kept running off and attacking things. I dealt with this by shutting her in my room, so she wouldn't get too far, and next time I will do this experiment when she is tired so she doesn't want to go attack things. Another issue was that she wanted to attack my face, which was quite painful, so I distracted her by letting her attack my hand instead. Next time, I will wait until she is asleep to do the experiment.
I also learned just how bad my allergies are. Since I usually don't track my allergic reactions, I didn't realize that they lasted up to five hours. I can apply what I learned in this experiment- both about myself and about my procedure- to remind myself to be more aware of what my body is doing as well as plan for potential setbacks in advance.
0:00- Start playing with cat
6:30- Nose begins to itch
8:00- Nose starts running, becomes congested
13:15- Sneeze four times
15:00- Stop playing with cat
21:30- Nose still itchy, congested
25:00- Sneeze four times
27:50- Nose stops itching
36:00- Sneeze four times
~5:00:00- Congestion stops
There were some problems that I ran into. The first was that my cat, being hyper and having an attention span of two milliseconds, kept running off and attacking things. I dealt with this by shutting her in my room, so she wouldn't get too far, and next time I will do this experiment when she is tired so she doesn't want to go attack things. Another issue was that she wanted to attack my face, which was quite painful, so I distracted her by letting her attack my hand instead. Next time, I will wait until she is asleep to do the experiment.
I also learned just how bad my allergies are. Since I usually don't track my allergic reactions, I didn't realize that they lasted up to five hours. I can apply what I learned in this experiment- both about myself and about my procedure- to remind myself to be more aware of what my body is doing as well as plan for potential setbacks in advance.
*Note: this experiment was conducted on 2/7/17
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