I have known my entire life that I am allergic to alcohol. It is something my entire family has on my mothers side. It is simply just to suck it up. But a lot of people don’t realize how many things alcohol are actually in. After covid we all know hand sanitizer, alco prep, mouthwash etc. But most liquid medications contains alcohol. And that’s when it becomes tricky. A simple thing as cough syrup… so it’s not just in food I have to watch out and be careful but after what happened today, I have to be even more careful in that area as well!

I woke up this morning with almost a normal throat. I could swallow without problem. I felt good enough to take the dogs for a slow walk but when I came home I realized maybe I had overdone it after all. I had a lot of phlegm in my throat and some tightness. After a shower I decided that I maybe should take a puff of that Albuterol that the doctor gave me to see if that helps. Said and done. Didn’t think about it at all, I had an Albuterol nebulizer treatment at the hospital but shortly after the inhalation I started to feel the tingling in my throat, mouth and soon the entire face. Thankfully I am not someone who panics about this. It was very long time ago it happens last and I have much more medical knowledge now than I had then. I went and got my pulse ox and sat down. Had the phone dialed on 911 in case I felt it was going bad. My saturation was jumping between 91 and 93% so I got enough air. I didn’t feel that I couldn’t breath it was more like my entire body from the shoulders and up was having that feeling when your leg or arm falls asleep. As long as the saturation wasn’t dropping or I felt different I was going to fight this out. It took about 20 minutes and it started to subside. Enough time for me to read the freaking label on the package…

I felt so dumb. Such an idiot. I had not even paid a thought to that it may be a different base in this form of solution as this is much more concentrated than the nebulizer that I had previously. I am usually very careful with new medications but this wasn’t a “new” medication… After another 15 minutes my face was back to normal. A little headache was all that remained. I didn’t even dare taking anything for that. I was not going to load my body with anything extra. Instead I called my doctor and was glad to get an appointment this afternoon. Just needed to check if there was anything I needed to do, avoid or think about after this. As well let him know what happened… now I know that I am still allergic to alcohol. My doctor thought that it was probably a good idea at this point to have an Epi-pen on hand just in case. To have a reaction just by one puff indicates that next time it can be worse, even if it is not by inhalator.

I learned a hard lesson today for sure, but very glad that it didn’t become any worse. I really need to be very vigilant with all kinds of medications, that’s for sure!