Allergist Visit

Sometimes I have problems swallowing... the food feels like it gets stuck halfway down, and I have to wait for it. Last time I was in, I asked my doc if she thought I had what my dad has, where allergies cause his esophagus to close (thankfully just the esophagus, and not the trachea... although it does occasionally interrupt meals for a trip to the loo), or if it might be what my mom had, where acid reflux created a pouch (treated using acid reducers). She said that she might need to scope me to check for a pouch, but to see my allergist first.

Since this mainly happens with hummus (that I make myself, so that it doesn't have tahini / sesame), I brought in some hummus, a chick pea, cumin, and paprika for a skin prick test. (I didn't feel like wasting a lemon, and I really don't think it's the olive oil.) As usual, everything produced at least a tiny bump... but cumin produced a big one. *sigh* I *like* cumin! I *don't* *want* to be allergic to cumin! I'm guessing it's a rather uncommon allergy, though, because both my allergist and the nurse doing the test were surprised that I'm allergic to cumin. (Well, the nurse was surprised... the allergist knows to expect weird things from me.) She's doing a blood test as well to confirm that cumin is bad and that chick peas are okay, as well as check some other things.

On the mildly interesting side of things, she thinks I *might* have eosinophilic esophagitis. (I got her to write the name down so that I could google it. To save myself from having to type it lots, I'll refer to it as EE.) Apparently EE is a recently discovered disease, and there actually is a way to treat the symptoms. (Yay!) She still wants me scoped, and will be sending a note to my regular doc that the gastroenterologist should take a biopsy to check for EE. (I wonder if my dad has EE too, and if there's a genetic link? I offered to send my dad to her if it turns out that I do have EE. She said that perhaps someone at the university might be interested in doing a genetic study.)

To cheer myself up, I let myself pick out some fun things at Michaels:

Tonight I made some lobster-claw style beaded stitch markers. I'll post photos of them (and other finished projects) another day.

Interesting thing I saw on my travels today: a bike locker at a transit hub:

Neat! It has a door on each end, and a piece of aspenite dividing the box into two wedge-shaped compartments. (I'm not sure how the aspenite will hold up to a well-placed kick, but it should be secure enough during the day.) Of course, both compartments were empty, and the only bike around was chained to one of the bus stop poles. ;)

I also treated myself to a trip to Mike's General Store. It was neat, but it didn't live up to the grand place I had built up in my head. Also, a lot of the things didn't have prices, and I hate asking. Oh well... it was still fun. :)