Acrylic fume allergy?

Thanks. That was really just my way of suggesting that itching out of the blue is often a good opportunity to have a visit with your primary care to look for underlying causes. I should have put the caveat that I am not a medical professional. Just someone who has seen far too many people ignore symptoms until the problem got out of control!

Omeprazole. :frowning:

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I went for a decent hike the other day and came across a Hercules Club tree. I rarely see them. Supposedly the Native Americans (and likely early settlers) would chew the bark, twigs, fruit etc as kind of a natural novocaine. I gave it a nibble but didn’t get any fat lip or tongue feeling. :man_shrugging:t2:

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I’m curious that if the acrylic is the cause, is it you inhaling the fumes or it landing on your body or both? Perhaps a Tyvec suit and a mask to see what happens. I had to clean up a lot of rodent scat in the garage a few years ago (turns out they love silk threads to nest in) and had to wear one and a respirator. Got them at the paint store. Or even just wearing long sleeves and a mask as a trial…

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VERY! I treated an overdose once, it was no joke… and of course older men with large prostates shouldn’t use, as you can end up with severe urinary retention… and it is great for inducing delirium…

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I think you can become sensitized to pretty much anything. I would definitely think about what else may have changed, though.

The way my doc described benadryl to me: if you really need relief, don’t be afraid to take a benadryl, but don’t take it unless you really need it. Use the other stuff if you can.

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I did a bit of Googling and it seems to be a very popular herbal though I could not find anything specific about active ingredients. Much about pain reduction (toothache tree a common name) and causing heavy sweating, three species and some argument about the differences among them, same genus as several Asian peppers.

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Because sometimes what you’re going to do is keep breathing when you might have lost that ability while trying to save the choline in your brain :slight_smile:

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Unrelated but since we’re talking drugs and plants, here’s a fun database.

https://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/psychoactives.shtml

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Not the most awesome advice. First off, now (in 2020) we have newer generations of antihistamines that are safer and more effective, such as certerizine (Zyrtec), now while most of us were classically taught to use Benadryl for all this stuff, studies show Zyrtec works better. It still is a anti-histamine, but has less anti-cholinergic effect (I.e. safer) versus Benadryl. While some people report better itching relief from Benadryl, that’s more from being so shlogged you don’t care versus lowering histamine levels. Now the biggest issue is that most things people have a sensitivity to aren’t allergies. And even medical personnel calling things allergies often aren’t true allergies. And allergic reactions (vernacular) aren’t all histamine mediated; and of its not Benadryl isn’t doing squat.

For instance anaphylactic peanut allergies, if you have it, don’t take Benadryl, you’ll die as it is not going to help you, only epinephrine (adrenaline for you brexit folks) is the only thing that’s mediating your reaction now. Asthma? Don’t try Benadryl. Nickel sensitivity isn’t helped by Benadryl either. Doctors experience allergy-rage by looking in patient’s records; I recently had a patient who had epinephrine listed as an “allergy”. Sigh… and her reaction listed: “tachycardia” (fast pulse). Well, no kidding, that’s what it does, and without epinephrine you would simply keel over and die, it’s sort of what keeps all your cells moving. There are of course multiple pathways in our immune system to deal with invasion (which allergies fall under) only one of which is mediated by histamine (what Benadryl blocks).

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Very interesting, thanks! I had no idea benadryl wasn’t the big gun any more.

I have only taken it once in recent memory, but we do still keep it around for pet first aid.

I had one report she was allergic to serotonin. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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One of the insurance fights that has infuriated me to no end is when I have a patient with severe insomnia who has tried all the Things without success and finally responds to Belsomra, but turns out to be one of the many who need 40 mg rather than 20 mg. The FDA decided to make 20 mg the max recommended dose, even though in the trials they went as high as 80 mg. Their reasoning is that there’s a higher risk for side effects at doses higher than 20 mg, so insurance companies will flatly refuse to pay for doses over 20 mg. But if you look up the trials to see what the side effects were, you find out the only statistically significant one was…[drumroll, please]…SOMNOLENCE.

Argh!

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I am on it too. It’s super expensive even at the regular dose. required prior-auth

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Interestingly enough the FDA did a release on the soon-to-be-more studies on CBDs, with the (fairly standard) warnings that people are selling it as both a cure all and a harmless additive (the truth being somewhere in between) - but based on the studies they did when getting approval for it as an anti-seizure drug the greatest risk is for somnolence…which is also kinda the point!
Don’t operate heavy machinery or sign legal documents while on any medications that take away pain/annoyance - most of them operate on the idea that if you’re slightly out of it you won’t care as much!

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I know a couple people who may be allergic to being happy.

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Trying to navigate a major though very rare disability can be double fun as those who know anything are often only aware of the physical effects on the bones when the issue is metabolic and there are very few (any?) metabolic pathways that do only one thing. Even many older medical references focus only there or speak in such generalities that do not begin to get the idea across. So even the doctor much less the insurance company often have trouble dealing with what information as I have been able to gather over the years.
One med cost eight times as much for the 200mg that I was taking compared to the 100 mg, so the doctor prescribed it for twice a day and I took both first thing in the morning as before but insurance being what it is 10 different doctors later none with awareness of the issue before meeting me becomes an adventure every month making me hand carry the prescription no more than 3 days ahead of running out when it usually takes at least a week to accomplish that.

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