[fmichael]

This has been something I've been wondering about for years, but have never shared.

Beginning when I was a little kid, I had terrible allergies. Near fatal anaphalactic shock to insect stings, sulfa-drugs, tetnus toxoid, cats, guinnie pigs, kreosote stain, hay fever, you name it, many of them sent me to the ER at one time or another. I was really spared only asthma and food allergies. To the point that we had an immunogist living next doorm and when ever he needed a sample from a known allergic person, I was called down to his lab. (I think he called me the most allergic person he knew.)

I go on to having a series of desensitization shots, with mixed results. Finally I left Minnesota for LA: trading ragweed for acquired smog irritation.

Fast forward many years to 2005, four years into CRPS. I'm sitting one day in a parking lot and I look down to see a hornet grinding his thorax into my wrist. (It's just with all the small-fiber neuropathy I can't feel it.) I then reach my kids' allergist, and she tells me to call her back in 20 minutes and let her what's happening. Only nothing does, not even a welt!

Amazed, she had me come into her office and we agreed to a complicted blood test, and after the serum was extracted it was put in a centrifuge and then immedately frozen and packed in dry-ice for shipment to a guy's lab at Johns Hopkins. Two months later the results come back, after being tested for all 55 stinging insects in their inventory, I had ZERO REACTIVITY!!!

Now, there's literature out there - citations to be supplied once I'm home in a couple of days - suggesting that when people acquire an auto-immune disease, their immunonlogical signaling cells (the "T-helper") shift from the TH-1 - which are focussed on external agents - to TH-2 cells, which can signal immune attacks on the body itself. And it, although not in 2005 when this went down, is now well established that -at least in its intial stages - RSD/CRPS IS A DISEASE OF NEURO-AUTOIMMUNE INFLAMATION.

So with that, has anyone else seen their allergies fall away with the onset of RSD/CRPS?

[alt1268]

fmichael, I have never had severe allergies. But I still get welts from misqoutes if that counts. Sorry can't be much help, but I found your story extermely interesting.

Originally Posted by fmichael

This has been something I've been wondering about for years, but have never shared.

Beginning when I was a little kid, I had terrible allergies. Near fatal anaphalactic shock to insect stings, sulfa-drugs, tetnus toxoid, cats, guinnie pigs, kreosote stain, hay fever, you name it, many of them sent me to the ER at one time or another. I was really spared only asthma and food allergies. To the point that we had an immunogist living next doorm and when ever he needed a sample from a known allergic person, I was called down to his lab. (I think he called me the most allergic person he knew.)

I go on to having a series of desensitization shots, with mixed results. Finally I left Minnesota for LA: trading ragweed for acquired smog irritation.

Fast forward many years to 2005, four years into CRPS. I'm sitting one day in a parking lot and I look down to see a hornet gringing his thorax into me! (It's just with all the small-fiber neuropathy I can't feel it.) I then reach my kids' allergist, and she tells me to call her back in 20 minutes and let her what's happening. Only nothing does, not even a welt!

Amazed, she had me come into her office and we agreed to a complicted blood test, and after the serumgardeners was extracted it was put in a centrifuge and then immedately frozen and packed -in dry-ice for shipment to a guy's lab at Johns Hopkins. Two months later the results come back, after being tested for all 55 stinging insects in their inventory, I had ZERO REACTIVITY!!!

Now, there's literature out there - citations to be supplied once I'm home in a couple of days - suggesting that when people acquire an auto-immune disease, their immunonlogical signaling cells (the "T-helper") shift from the TH-1 - which are focussed on external agents - to TH-2 cells, which can signal immune attacks on the body itself. And it, although not in 2005 when this went down, is now well established that -at least in its intial stages - RSD/CRPS IS A DISEASE OF NEURO-AUTOIMMUNE INFLAMATION.

So with that, has anyone else seen their allergies fall away with the onset of RSD/CRPS?

[ballerina]

Very interesting Mike. I am just the opposite. Pre CRPS I was only allergic to bees. Now I am allergic to multiple things, most meds, pollen, grass, some sun blocks and get rashes from who knows what.

Looking forward to learning more when you return. Hope you are somewhere fun!!!!!!!!!

[Nanc]

fmichael, I have developed more severe allergies over the years since developing RSD/CRPS. I was first diagnosed with RSD/CRPS in 1992 and the allergies began in 1996, both have progressed terribly.

Nanc