Pain vs Itch

My allergies have been absolutely horrible the last few days. I'm highly allergic to ragweed and it must be pollinating like mad. When my allergies are like this it makes me super sensitive to other allergens that normally don't trigger my allergies such as flowers and my dog.

Hubby brought me home some sunflowers from a little farm stand on Friday and they had to go right outside. Notice all the pollen on the table.
At least the bees really got to enjoy them. When you buy them you have to shake the bees off of the flowers before you get in the car or else you bring them home. Then the poor things don't know where to go at night.

Our house happens to be next to a wooded area and all along the fringes of said woods are tons of ragweed plants. We have to keep the windows closed and run the air conditioner even when it's not hot out just to filter the air. Sometimes we have to leave the house and head to the mall or movies so my allergies can calm down away from the ragweed. I take Zyrtec and for the most part it works okay but sometimes it cannot compete with amount of histamine my body is producing.

At school on Friday my allergies were acting up, mostly itching of my ears, nose and throat. After I was home about 10 minutes my head practically exploded. I'd never had an allergy attack that quick or bad. It felt like an army of ants wearing cleats were walking around under my skin on my face. I stopped counting my violent sneezes at 50. I was literally crazed and wanted to scream. Today (Sunday) I have no voice and my throat is raw.

I've suffered with allergies since I was 2 and have tried many medicines over the years. Nothing seems to really work well for me. Mostly I hate the itch. I'd rather have pain than itch. Even a mosquito bite drives me nuts. I'd rather it hurt than itch. I have a high pain tolerance and don't have any chronic pain issues. I know that many people do and I don't mean to belittle that. I know I wouldn't want to suffer with 24/7 pain.

I do understand pain and the emotions it brings out. When I was induced with my second son the pain was well, I can't think of an adjective to describe it but I will say that I lost it for a second. In my mind I knew the cause of the pain was the IV in my wrist that was delivering the pitocin. I started to chew at the tube to get it out just like an animal may chew it's leg off to escape a trap. I had never experienced anything like that before or since that. It was surreal. I just knew some deep down animal instinct was to get that out of me. The nurse was shocked and so was I when I realized what I was doing.

Since itch bothers me more than most pain I'd rather hurt. I've never enjoyed autumn and ragweed is one of the reasons. At one time I did get allergy shots but eventually stopped because they didn't work. So for now I'll spend the worse part of allergy attacks shopping where the air is filtered or visiting people that have no ragweed nearby.