Anybody have to carry an eppy pen? Life changing event

A

Andrew Holley

Well-known member
Last week Wednesday, my wife asked me to go to Walmart with her for a few items. Now I don't know about your local Walmart, but ours is full of freaks, where these people come from and what they do for a living, just makes my head scratch. I usually go just to watch people. Turns out I am now one of them.
So anyways, away we went, walked around the store for about a half an hour, cart about half full of various stuff. Get to the cash register and my eyes start watering, by the time she paid, I looked like I was crying, sneezing and cough with every breath and had the shakes. Pushing the cart, half leaning/riding it, we got to the truck. Got home took a Benadryl, 30 mins later took another when I realized I was having trouble breathing, off to the hospital we went. On the way there, my face swelled up, couldn't see out of one eye and the lower half went numb.
As we got to admitting, I still didn't think I was that bad, until they pushed me into a wheel chair and off we went. ( I figured I would be sitting in the waiting room for about an room and by then the Benadryl would have fully kicked in and I would be back to normal.)
After couple of shots from eppy pens, sterorids and something else, I finally started to feel better. Made back home later that night.
At this point, I haven't yet seen an allergist (later this week) and now have to carry an eppy pen everywhere I go. ER doctor said I had a fairly slow reaction, next time could and probably will happen faster.
All my life I have had summer allergies, running nose, watery eye. Nothing too sever, just enough to be annoying. Now I feel like my life is tied to this stupid little yellow pen. Every time I sneeze I feel for the pen and start making a mental path to the exit, to the truck and how to get to a hospital.
Getting old sucks, just needed to vent.
 
Andrew,

Sorry to hear of the change in your life. Even tho I don't have any first hand experience, I'm sure you will adjust and life will seem "normal" once again.
[font=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]Every time I sneeze I feel for the pen and start making a mental path to the exit, to the truck and how to get to a hospital. [/font]
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Just a true story I feel I should share. A few years back, one of the guys at work was not feeling well. He never mentioned it to anyone, just left his office. It was two days before anyone located him. Turns out, he had driven himself to the hospital and parked in the parking lot. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, that is as far as he got.

So please, If you feel the need to get to the hospital, tell someone, anyone, just don't try to drive there yourself.
 
Getting old sucks
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Glad you got to the hospital in time.

Every time I get to thinking this (aches, pains, knee gives out, can't find my reading glasses, etc) I think about all the cool stuff I have had a chance to do in the last five or ten years. Life has never been so good. Yeah, I have to take a pill or two and I can't do some of what I used to do, but frankly I am a lot smarter about what I do try and I keep finding easier ways to do it. :)

Sorry you need an epipen. Glad we have them available to us. I have some serious allergies and asthma and used to get acute attacks that would put me in the hospital. (Woke up alone in a hotel room where I had passed out from lack of oxygen once - talk about scary and lucky) With a good management plan you can get by very well. I haven't had an acute attack in a long time now.

Good luck finding the trigger(s) and dealing with them proactively.
 
Not to make fun. We all have to deal with something, or somethings medical as we age. Hopefully you will able to deal with it in your own way. Trust in God and Good doctors.

As for Walmart, most of the folks at our local one, camo of all types is standard attire. Which makes me smile.


I drove myself to the hospital during my first MI, 2005. Walked out of the deer woods last Dec. 9th with the next round, and took a ambulance ride Dec. 24th. Now I'm good to go (one way or another).

Still paying for the ambulance ride...


I totally agree about finding better/easier ways to do things we love to do, while dealing with each of our own medical issues. If ya wanna do it, where there is a will, there is a way.

I wish you well.
 
Now I don't know about your local Walmart, but ours is full of freaks, where these people come from and what they do for a living, just makes my head scratch.
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Welcome to Earth....it's not just Walmart..the freaks are freaking everywhere.

As for your allergy...think foods, even if your actual allergy is not a food, certain foods make the reactions much worse. I cut most processed foods and it's amazing how much lessened the seasonal congestion is.

Best
Chuck
 
I keep an Epipen in the blind bag and the truck.
Closest call BP was 42 over 17 at the ER entire body was a hive.
Keep two just in case!!
 
Glad it turned out ok for you. A friend of mine has a known severe allergy to bees. Never had a epipen despite all our urging. Finally got him as he got stung while home alone. Thank god for the pop in visit. Another buddy just happened to be driving by and stopped to say hello. Found him unresponsive and not breathing in the backyard. Did cpr.....called the emts and got him to the hospital. He is now in an induced coma and it is unknown if there is any brain damage till he is brought out of the coma. Always said it would never happen to him.
Get an Epipen......watch the expiration date and tell anybody with you where it is and how to use it!!!!!
 
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Just a true story I feel I should share. A few years back, one of the guys at work was not feeling well. He never mentioned it to anyone, just left his office. It was two days before anyone located him. Turns out, he had driven himself to the hospital and parked in the parking lot. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, that is as far as he got.

So please, If you feel the need to get to the hospital, tell someone, anyone, just don't try to drive there yourself.
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I second Dave's advice. One of my neighbors drove himself to the hospital. He was having stroke like symptoms. No one knew he was there and for whatever reason, had no way to tell who his emergency contact was. His kids hadn't heard from him in a while (which is apparently unusual) so they started asking all the neighbors if we'd seen or heard from him Turns out he was still in the hospital. It turned out okay in the end but his family was mighty scared for a while.

Sorry to hear about the allergy. I don't have an epi-pen but tend to be very allergic to certain things. If I had to carry one around, I'd likely look at it more along the lines of gee I hate carrying around a wallet or little purse (I hate purses) but I need everything in them if I want to go to the store or drive around town or go hunting. A necessary evil that eventually becomes just an afterthought...
 
Have you had other allergic reactions on this scale before? If this is not something you have had to deal with chronically, or even sporadically, then I would say this doesn't pass the smell test. What you describe is a pretty high level autoimmune reaction event. Given where you were and who you were mingling with, there is a pretty decent probability that you may have touched something on your cart or a box or grocery item that your body opted to perceive as a serious antigen...or, someone left you a "present".


I would go have an in-depth conversation with your physician over your blood work, and possibly a work-up with an allergist to gain a fuller understanding of why your immune system suddenly decided to betray you...
 
Andrew,

I am glad to hear it worked out for you. If you do need to use the epi pen the next thing you do is call 911, immediately! Allergic reaction/anaphylaxis will always get medics/ER docs attention right-away. Things can go from bad to worse in a hurry sometimes..

Tom
 
I have carried epi-pens for several years now for bee stings. I think RL Ligman has a pretty good idea for you. It does seem pretty strange that after how ever many years with nothing like this ever happening, you get a severe reaction like that. It is scary.

I always used to get puffy from bee stings(yellowjackets) when I was a kid, but nothing serious. Then about 20 years ago, I am out messing around in a duck blind in September, and a bad ass mud wasp walks on to my thumb and stings the living poop out of me. It felt like someone heated up a needle and stuck it through my thumb. Anyway, I have in the back of my mind that I haven't been stung by anything in like 20 plus years and I need to stay alert. So I tell my buddy that we should probably head back just in case, so we pick up our stuff and make our way back to his truck, it's about 10-15 minutes.And I'm starting to itch on my head, but it's really hot and I don't think anything of it, then my armpits start itching, then I start to get a little numb around my lips, and realize, I have a problem. So I say hey, we need to get moving to the hospital(lucky-it's only about 3 miles down the road), and he says, OK, I just want to change my clothes and put a clean shirt on, give me a few minutes. And I say, no you don't get it, we need to leave right now and you need to haul ass, and by the way, do you know what to do if I have trouble breathing? Of course, what I mean is, can you cut into my windpipe with a knife if you have to? So I kind of explain that, we haul ass to the hospital, they take me right in, hit me up with epinephrine and benadryl, and I really feel like poop for about a half hour, then I'm perfectly fine and I go home. Now I have been stung several times since then by yellowjackets and paper wasps, and have not had any issues, just very minor swelling in the affected area, which pretty much everyone gets. I haven't needed to use my epi-pens. But I stay clear of mud wasps these days, and look all around inside my boat when I get ready to get it out and grassed up(that's where the paper wasps usually get me). And I look underneath everything that sits around all summer with no activity before I grab it, like the trailer tongue(that's the other place paper wasps get me). But at least I have an idea about what is likely to cause me a problem and what is not likely to.

I hope you can figure out what happened to you so that you can know to avoid it. It has to be something very unusual.
 
Yes, Andrew, the next time would likely be worse. Keep an epi-pen at home and in your vehicle (or tackle box or blind bag). I am in the business, and have seen life threatening and fatal anaphylactic reactions.
 
Andrew,

My son has severe anaphylaxis for tree nuts and pea nuts. He also gets it from other legumes such as soy, peas, and lintels, but those have not sent him to the hospital.

The allergist should do a full screen. As mentioned, the risk of cross contamination in anaphylactic reactions is very high, particularly in grocery environments.

In response to my family's issues with food cross contamination risks I founded a small food company (www.nots-snacks.com). The issue isn't to feed my son as much as to give us LESS cross contamination risks. The old "May Contain", "Processed in a Facility With", etc. New labeling rules will change things a bit, and if it IS food for you, you will need to go through all of your favorites as manufacturers respond to the new rules. Example: Keebler is putting peanut flour into food that did not used to have it... cheaper to just put it in than to manage it across their contract manufacturing system.

Be well. If you have any specific questions feel free to PM me, I'll answer anything I can regarding food systems.

Very best,

Rob
 
Andrew, I have never needed an epi-pen, but have three times had asthma from a cat allergy send me to the emergency room for breathing medication.

Fortunately it has not happened for almost 20 years, but for a while it was scary, and being single with a severe cat allergy in your 30's really cut down on the pool of available women to date . . . .
 
Andrew, I have never needed an epi-pen, but have three times had asthma from a cat allergy send me to the emergency room for breathing medication.

Fortunately it has not happened for almost 20 years, but for a while it was scary, and being single with a severe cat allergy in your 30's really cut down on the pool of available women to date . . . .
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One of the most POSITIVE allergies (or afflictions) known to man. Keeps you away from cats and crazy cat ladies to be.
 
RLLigman,
Never had anything like this before, when I lived in the southern part of the state, we had rag weed, which bothered me some, but nothing close to this.
Talked with my doctor, she referred me to an allergist, so I have appointment in about a month for scratch testing. (Little upset it takes over a month to get an appointment.) She didn't want to do any blood work.


Thanks everyone for the comments and thoughts, certainly no where near some the health problems others have suffered. So I guess life isn't that bad, but certainly a change.
 
Good Luck with your allergist appointment!
Until you determine what triggered the event, you have a VERY difficult future.

You can divide your immune system into innate and adaptive components. The adaptive portion of your immune system's response to challenge by a foreign body or pathogen that it perceives to be an antigen is capable of "learning", with an anaphylactic response at the FAR extreme of learning gone wrong. Usually, there is a precursor event where you were exposed to the antigen that super sensitized your immune system's response.

Based on your wording of your account, I assumed you had no allergic response issues that you had to deal with prior this event. This is the odd portion of your account of events. Given where you were and who you were mixing and mingling with, your trigger may not be something common. I would suggest you compile some notes on what you touched sequentially (cart, packages, etc.) and in what department(s) within the Walmart complex you moved through progressively up to the point where you had to leave for the ER.

There are a couple of synthetic opioids that can induce anaphylaxis upon exposure to just several grains of the molecule: I read of an incident where a law enforcement team went into a bedroom during a body recovery investigation where opioid overdose was suspected. One of the investigating officers opened a nightstand drawer and noticed a small plume of powder aerosolize into a "puff", within seconds he was well into an anaphylactic shock response cascade. Who knows what was on your cart handle, any package you touched, or what you came into contact with as you walked through the store.

I would assume there was some blood work-up associated with your hospitalization event, that is what may hold some clues as to what induced mast cells to form-depends on what panel was ordered... There was no value in her doing another draw well past your ER visit...
 
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