I am allergic to the cold. No really, I am!

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I have went my whole life never meeting one person that has never even heard of this allergy, and basically 9 out of 10 of them never even believe me anyway. It is weird though because I’ve noticed allot of people didn’t actually start having the issue until they were adults. I am a 52 year old man and this has been an issue for me since I was a child. Of course back in the late 60’s and throughout the 70’s nobody had any idea what it was so my childhood was full of hospital trips, pretty much every test you can think of, quite few more tests you’ve never even heard of, and being given medications from clueless doctors that I should’ve never had taken at all. One of those medications that comes to mind was “phenobarbital” which was given to me when I was in about 4th or 5th grade. I don’t really want to get into explaining what that medicine is and what it’s used for but it is a barbiturate and I basically don’t really remember to much of that part of my life because of being on that medication. It wasn’t until my parents brought me to a doctor that actually cared and didn’t just rush into a guessed diagnosis and throw me on some stupid random medication. When he did figure it out he was actually one of the most excited individuals I’ve ever seen. I wish I could remember his name but he was one of the first doctors to have studied and write about it in the medical field, and of course I was his little test subject. So, when you are looking in a medical book about this particular allergy and you see pictures of maybe a persons arm with hives on it after ice had been on it for a while, that arm might just be my arm. But after I hit my teenage years I never once seen another doctor about this condition ever again and it has to be pretty serious for me to go to a doctor for anything else, and I would have to be out cold before I let anyone take me to a hospital even to this day. I would never suggest doing things this way but I just handled this issue on my own pretty much by trial and error the rest of my life. After a while I just knew what I could do and what not to do, and even though there were a few “hick ups” along the way I have made it all the way to 52, so not to bad I think. Again, not a recommended way to deal with it though. Living here on the sun in Phoenix, AZ did help out a little bit too (just sayin).

Take Care!