Allergies

This isn't necessarily a post for human interest. I have to document the actual series of events that transpired after I realized my cat allergy just in case I need to remember at some point, or if some other pregnant lady has similar questions regarding all of this stuff.

So we got the cat during pregnancy...allergic. I took Loratadine (a generic allergy med) to overcome the allergy and it worked but I wasn't taking it every single day, more symptomatically.

After a while I realized I was having trouble breathing and couldn't get a full breath, not to mention my lungs were itching deep in the lobes and driving me bananas. I went to the doctor, afraid I was coming down with pneumonia or something. I was told I had asthma. I was prescribed ProAir for symptoms PRN, and QVar to reduce the inflammation, to be taken twice daily for two weeks.

About a week or two later, I noticed a rash starting to appear on my belly that looked like chicken pocks. It didn't itch yet but I was curious about possibly a yeast infection. I was at the doctor's for a routine check-up at about week 20 or something and I happened to mention the rash. He looked at it and said it looked like a yeast infection.

He prescribed Diflucan, the one-pill yeast infection treatment.

I took it, not realizing it was Class C for pregnant women, but found no relief. In fact in about 4-5 days, I discovered that the rash was getting worse and spreading around my sides, up and down! And it was becoming VERY itchy - I looked like I had fleas sometimes. It was awful!

I called the doctor again and reported the Diflucan hadn't worked and that the rash was worsening. He called in yet another prescription to my pharmacy and I didn't know what it was until I went to pick it up.

It was predisone. Now, I'm a therapist and a lot of my orthopedic patients take this drug to ease the inflammation after a surgery. I'm aware that it's a "big" drug with lots of side effects. So I looked it up. It also is Class C, which means it hasn't necessarily been proven safe for pregnancy, and in fact has been associated with scary things like cleft pallet and Down Syndrome. I looked up Diflucan and that's when I realized I'd also taken it although it too was Class C.

I decided not to take the prednisone. Wondering about the rash...and its timing, I also decided to stop taking the ProAir since the rash appeared shortly after I started taking it (the prescriptions for QVar and ProAir had been filled about 2 weeks apart for insurance reasons and I'd started ProAir later).

About 2 weeks after stopping ProAir, I noticed the rash start to ease up...and now it's nearly gone. I still take the QVar and was also taking the Loratadine religiously until the cat was banished to the far reaches of the earth.

About two weeks ago, I also decided to move the cat out of the house until the baby comes to relieve any other symptoms that might come as a result of the allergy. He's at my grandmother's house now. Since he's been gone, I've no longer felt the need to take Loratadine nor QVar (except once in a great while) since most of my symptoms have been resolved.

I haven't been back to my doctor yet and am curious as to what he felt was offsetting the risk of giving me 2 Class C medications. It wasn't worth it to me, and that's what I'll tell him.