Another thing to add to my recurring, unofficial Joys of Aging manual.
I'd known that children can grow out of allergies. Now I find myself unpleasantly surprised by the fact that aging adults can grow into this nonallergic rhinitis stuff. Things that didn't bother us in the past can all of a sudden make our lives miserable.
Back in April 2013, I wrote here about what I thought was just allergic rhinitis, defined as allergies to such irritants as pollen, ragweed, pet dander, politics. After I wrote that, however, I realized that the main problem was nonallergenic rhinitis. According to Webmd.com, nonallergenic rhinitis "describes a set of symptoms that resemble an allergy but that occur without a known cause" but are set off by known irritants, such as bleach, cleaning solutions, glues, hairspray, latex and perfumes. "Nonallergic rhinitis can cause just as much misery as allergic rhinitis," according to the website. "It can also be associated with the same complications." Oh, no stuff.
Apparently, nonallergenic rhinitis doesn't care if you used Fragrance A, Cleaner B or Laundry Detergent C for years in the past with no problem. Any day you can use one of these solutions, and to borrow a description from that 2013 column, find you're breathing like Darth Vader and have no idea why.
I am still mourning my forced estrangement from super glue. This at one time was my go-to solution for just about everything ... fixing dishes, knickknacks, photo frames, shoes, you name it. Seriously, super glue transformed me into MacGyver, the action TV-show character who could get out of any scrape with shoestrings, duct tape and his Swiss Army knife. I re-confess to once suffering a mishap with hair clippers and using super glue to restore to my head a piece of the short Afro I was sporting. Now I can't look at super glue without going into a sad orgy of chain sneezing, nonstop nose-blowing, stuffiness and all-around misery. After a couple of years doing my own glue-on fingernail tips, I realized what was causing the problem. The MacGyverism took a serious hit.
An online forum revealed that my apartment's old-school bathtub, which had become post-apocalyptic looking after failed cleaning attempts, would become white again with oven cleaner. Off I went to buy a can, not considering the probability that a product that sent me coughing even during better days would probably plummet me deep into Rhinitisland.
I used the entire can in about three applications, strapping on the multiple paper masks only after Hubby got onto me for failing to do so ... never mind the fact that wearing 10 of these babies at a time is tantamount to expecting polystyrene foam to serve as a bullet-proof vest. A couple days later, every orifice in my face was running, I couldn't taste my food and my poor co-workers probably wish they had a button they could just push that would emit a recorded "Gesundheit."
This was about the same time I began to realize that the medical-grade glue used for my fancy, Father Time-cheating eyelash extensions was also causing blepharitis symptoms ... something that had not happened my last several stints wearing said lashes in the past decade. And, oh yeah, I had a coffee date with a reader. I spent half the date apologizing to her for looking possessed.
These are just some of the things that I have to give up because they now, all of a sudden, make me sick. Ah well. There's one advantage to all this: the push to live more simply and naturally, also known as looking homely/"ratchet" and letting the house stay dirty.
Or, somebody could get me MacGyver. If anybody can figure out how to do eyelashes, fingernails and bathtubs without setting off somebody's rhinitis, I figure he's the one.
Emails need not be hypoallergenic:
Style on 06/25/2017