kv0925 | Doctor My Eyes!

Oy, it's always a joy to bring up pollen.com and see Orlando in the top spot as the worst place in the US to be for those afflicted by seasonal allergies. The scale used to only go to 10, now it goes to 12 and we've been in the mid-11s this week. Tomorrow's only a 10, so at least there's that. I've been taking my daily Zyrtec, which does seem to help keep my sinuses from getting too clogged up. But when the pollen level gets this high, it does nothing for my eyes. I literally can't even step outside without my eyes starting to burn and itch and water, and then it takes a few rounds of Visine-A to make me stop wanting to rub them right out of my head. For someone who loves to be outside, why must nature torment me like this? I love oak trees! They clearly do not love me in return. I try to restrain myself from rubbing because sometimes I rub myself right into a case of pinkeye. But good golly it's hard not to rub when they itch SO BAD KILL ME NOW ACK

Sigh. What else is happening.. not much, really. Work this week has been okay, though I'm having to pick up the slack because the other half of my team has been out--last week it was because his mother-in-law was ill and his wife had to fly up to New York to see her, and this week he went to the conference in Nashville I sometimes go to. He actually had to leave that early yesterday to make it out of town before this winter storm hit--turned out to be a good idea, as his originally-scheduled flight did get cancelled. But he was set to take today off anyway, so he'll be back tomorrow. And it's about time!

I've been keeping up with Better Call Saul, which I'd very much been looking forward to. So far I like it. A colleague here thinks it's been a bit too slow to get going, and I do see what he means. But I still like it. It seems to be going interesting places, and it would appear it's about to crank things up a notch now that we're finally getting around to more of Mike's piece of the puzzle. Next week's episode oughta be a good one. And that bit in this week's with Tony the Toilet Buddy, hilarious. Also started watching the new season of House of Cards, and have not been disappointed. Good stuff it you liked the first two seasons.

Okay, back to work. I hope everyone is having a good week!

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I've been watching 'Better Call Saul', too, and I can agree that it's been a little slow. That said, I'm inevitably comparing it to 'Breaking Bad' which always had a sense of urgency about it and will probably never be matched for excitement value. Tony Toilet was hilariously awful LOL

I hope your allergies settle down a bit soon, that can't be fun!

Yeah, I think the comparison to BrBa is inevitable, but unfair. It's a different show, though it must obviously have some similarities. I'm enjoying it for what it is, but I do think it will start picking up soon. :)

Thanks, it's a minor gripe in the grand scheme of things, but it certainly doesn't make me enjoy this time of year!

I want to see Better Call Saul so badly! It sounds so good. Love his character on Breaking Bad.

Sorry you're all stuffy and miserable. I'm so thankful I don't have allergies! Though Coal does... :/

Have I mentioned that Jessica (my roommate/horse trainer) is in Wellington? She's there with some of the horses she works with until April for the winter show circuit.

I admit BCS is no Breaking Bad, but Odenkirk is really good and I'm enjoying it so far. It does have some of the brilliance of BrBa, and I think it will be pretty awesome once it hits its stride.

It's weird, as a kid I can't recall ever having allergies. It's just been something that started maybe in my 20s, and seems to get a little worse as time goes on. And it's ironic because I love nature and trees and all the things that make me miserable this time of year. :/

I didn't realize Wellington was horse country! For that I usually think of Ocala, which is a lot closer to me. I've actually never been down there--the farthest south I've been is Vero Beach, which is maybe 90 minutes north of West Palm Beach. I really want to get down there to check out the Everglades and the Keys, though!

Ocala is horse country, too. But in Wellington they have the big show circuit in the winter where all the big name trainers go.

This has been a rough week. Last week I started having terrible pain in my shoulder, to the point that I couldn't sleep without heavy-duty drugs. Last night was the first night that I got a full night of sleep without said drugs.

Work has been great, though. My project has been going really well, demoed it for my boss and one of the users and they loved it. My next project meeting with the superintendent is in two weeks and I think I'll have almost everything ready to go except for the audit triggers and server encryption: since we don't have the server hired and configured yet, it's kinda hard to configure encryption and such.

It's so nice to have a project that makes you feel good and uses everything that you've studied and done over the decades, and having a good work environment makes it all the better.

Visine-A is my best friend. I think the itchy eyes is one of the worst parts of allergies because I have no self control about rubbing my eyes and I'll do it without even realizing it until someone comments on it. I imagine my allergies will flare up here soon as spring arrives and I've already armed myself with a new bottle of Visine :P

The Visine-A seemed to lose effectiveness for me, so I was looking into it this morning and apparently that's exactly right: if you use it regularly, the eyes become tolerant to the antihistamine and it takes more to be effective, plus it can cause something called rebound redness. I saw that drops with ketotifen (brand names Zaditor, Alaway, and Zyrtec/Claritin Eye drops, but also available as generics) were recommended instead--it's an antihistamine that lasts up to 12 hours and doesn't have the same issues with tolerance or rebound redness. So I ran out and picked up a bottle of that, and I think I might be pleased. I've only applied it once, of course, but it seems to have helped a lot. My eyes are still a bit sore and puffy, but I think that's just lingering from rubbing at them so much in the past few days. I am going to reapply the new drops this evening, and am hoping to wake up tomorrow much improved. We'll see!

I know what you mean, though. I KNOW I shouldn't rub my eyes too much, since I've given myself pinkeye more than once that way, but it's so hard to help it!

Oh that's interesting. I don't think I've ever used it so much that it stopped being effective but that's really good to know for future reference.

It's the same reason I have scars on my legs from scratching bug bites. I just can't control myself :P

I belly-ached to my dermatologist once and his kid has allergies so he wrote me a prescription for eye drops. It's some really common eye drop for allergy thing but that shit works!

Yeah, I'm saying you should go see a doc for a script.

I may end up doing that, especially if these new drops I got don't do the trick. I'm one of those people who typically need to be bleeding profusely before I'll go to a doctor, but I should probably give in and find a way to make this time of year less miserable.

yeah, me too.

But the drops are totally worth it. Works for 24 hours and the next day, it's not so bad so technically, it works a bit longer than 24 hours.

Doctor My Eyes!

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