i am lucky to have very few allergies. no food allergies, manageable seasonal allergies, a moderate cat allergy, and a reaction to penicillin when i was a baby that hasn't been put to the test since. that's all that i know of.
in years past, i noticed that i wasn't even allergic to mosquito bites. (in reality, it is a protein in the female mosquito's saliva that is deposited into your bloodstream that causes the reaction). i would get a small white bump where i could tell i had been bit but it wouldn't itch, and it would go away within a few hours. the internet says,
"A non-reaction could mean you're one of the lucky few who aren't allergic to mosquito saliva, says Dr. Andrew Murphy, a fellow at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. It also could mean you've developed an immunity to mosquito bites. "When a person has had repeated exposure to the mosquito allergen, her immune system can stop recognizing the allergen as a problem, and there is no reaction," Murphy says."
i think i used to at least have small reactions to bites, so it's possible i let my body get eaten up so much that it gave up on producing a reaction. here's to hating bug spray and DEET. (although now that i've learned more about lyme disease from ticks i might rethink that).
now here comes pregnancy, i get bit by a mosquito, and my body is like "why do you have 0 immune response to this, we gotta protect little doglet now" and musters up a nice big batch of histamine. the result is the following:
this bite is from 6 days ago and the diameter ranges from 1.75 to 2+ inches. i started getting worried yesterday so i contacted my GP (thanks zach for getting us going on that) and have been sending pictures. they still think it is within the realm of normal for a bad reaction caused by changing hormones. if it persists much longer i'll have to go to the doctor.
from now on, karma, i promise i will stop bragging about how i'm not allergic to mosquitoes, please don't do me like this.
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