SC - Allergies in general

[Laura C. Minnick]

Siegfried Heydrich wrote:
> 
>     OK, here's my 2 cents worth. Most of the people I know who have
> allergies tend to spend most of the time in air conditioned environments.
> There are several risk factors there, most notably mold and spores living in
> the ductwork. Also, those who live that lifestyle (air conditioned work,
> car, home) tend to have minimal exposure to things that can stress (i.e.
> work out or strengthen) the immune and related systems. Generally speaking,
> the more insular the lifestyle, the worse the allergies. I've also always
> harbored a sneaking suspicion that it's psychosomatically induced, and is a
> manifestation of some kind of self destructive stress reaction.
>     I've worked construction, and I don't know of anybody in the trades with
> allergies. Same thing with any field that gets you out into the great
> outdoors, and puts dirt under your fingernails. But I know lots of teachers
> and computer geeks who are allergic to something new every week.
>     I don't know if one leads to another, but there seems to be a definite
> relationship.

Um, interesting theories, but I can tell that you sure don't live in An
Tir!

Oregon has some of the highest counts for particulates in the nation-
passing even LA, and Eugene has the highest pollen count in the state
(Medford has the worst smog). _Everybody_ in Eugene has the sniffles all
year long, and right now it's bad- mold and mildew are more ubiquitous
here than pot (which is saying alot!). And I do mean _everybody_, from
the schoolteachers and students to the construction laborers and
millworkers to the kid at McDonald's that probably for gets to wash his
hands after blowing his nose. And there isn't much air-conditioning
around, unless you work downtown, for the State, of something like that.
Air-conditioning? Why? we spend nine months of the year at 55 with rain.
Two months at 65 with rain, and one month yelling about that yellow
thing in the sky and trying to find the box fan packed in the basement
behind the tourney gear!

I know I stay indoors alot because I have pretty severe allergies to
stuff that seems to result from plants having sex. ;-) I do not have
these allergies _because_ I am indoors. (By the same token, I don't have
fibromyalgia because I am sedentary- I have become sedentary because for
the pain from the FM. In fact, from what I've read, it appears not to
jump on the 'lazy', but on over-achievers. Go figure.) And dirt under my
mails only means that I have to do my nails again. *sigh*

I don't think that most allergies are a self-destructive stress
reaction, though some auto-immune stuff has been labelled such. I don't
think that a true allergy is a psychosomatic self-destructive stress
reaction any more than diabetes is. Drug abuse maybe, tobacco maybe, but
allergies?

Insofar as food allergies go, I think someone else recently (today)
pointed out again that there are differences between the classic
(anaphlactic shock- breathing difficulties, hives, heart racing, etc)
the neuro-responders (the Jekyll&Hyde kid, for instance), and food
_sensitivities_, which generally cause gastro-intestinal distress. The
first can be life-threatening, the second is a real pain, especially for
the caregiver, while the third is very unpleasant and painful, it
doesn't kill you. You may, however, go after the cook...

An ex of mine, whenever I would complain about one of my kids, would say
"Either genetics or the way you raised them!", prompting me to take a
swing at _him_. But with allergies I think it is- a combination of
'nature' (genetics) and 'nurture' (environmental factors).

Okay- it's been more than my two livres. Two francs?

'Lainie