Eye allergies

Do you suffer from eye allergies? My teenage daughter, Kitty, gets swollen eyes when her allergies are bad.

Her allergies seemed to be getting worse over the last few weeks. She is still taking her allergy medicine every night and having weekly allergy shots. If you want to know more about allergy shots, Webmd has a great section that explains it.

Part of the problem is trying to find out WHAT is making allergies worse. I can check a local allergy doctor's office to find the pollen count. But is there something nearby that is making Kitty worse? I happened to notice that the neighbors didn't plant anything in their garden this year. Instead, weeds had invaded the area and were getting higher and higher. They looked like ragweed, and it was right by our driveway. In fact, if we opened our windows or doors, the pollen from the weeds would come in the house. And Kitty would have to walk past their weed patch every day to get to the car.

What a sticky situation. What do you do? I decided to ask Neighbor if she minded if I dug the weeds out. She felt really bad that they were so out of control this year. I told her not to worry about it because she has 3 little kids that keep her very busy.

I got up early one morning and started digging up the 3' tall weeds. By the time I got to the end of the patch, my nose was running, I was sneezing, my chest was tight, and I could feel an asthma attack starting. I quickly gathered up the weeds, stuffed them in the neighbor's garbage can and haul their can out to the curb. I wanted those weeds as far away from our house as possible. 

Then I headed for tissues, my inhaler, and a shower. I couldn't help but feel annoyed about allergies. My family is completely miserable with swollen eyes, running noses, nonstop sneezing, and tight chests after the asthma flares up. Other people can be by the weeds, flowers, trees, animals, etc without so much as a sneeze. I hate the way our bodies over react to allergies.

I guess that's just all part of My Life as an Asthma Mom, right?