K-9 Discovery, Cat Allergies, and Mast Cell Madness

So back in my early 30s, we owned dogs.  I never had them growing up.  We were always too allergic.  But I went through a stage where I wanted critters around, big time, and my experience with cats had made me think I could take on anything.

I used to be incredibly allergic to cats.  I was so allergic that if I pet one and touched my face, my eyes would swell shut.  But for a relationship, and in full ignorance of my larger mast cell activation disorder, I took on trying to live with cats for someone I loved. 

We had an excellent vet and this was during a time I had one of the few basically decent doctors I have had in my
adult life, and between the two of them and things they suggested, I managed to live with cats.  I basically lived on antihistamines, and did a lot of things to make the cats less allergenic. 

I thought, over time, that I had desensitized myself to cats.  But in retrospect, I have recently realized that at about the same time, we had a cat with serious anxiety and skin issues.  And I have never been a person to give up easily.  I didn't want to have to turn her over to the humane society.  I felt responsible. 

So we did a bunch of things to try to help her adjust.  We worked with the vet.  I read behavior books voraciously.  We tried a lot of things.  At the end of the day, she was a mess and I kept coming back to the fact that that she seemed to hiss all the time when her skin itched.  So that was clearly stressing her out.  She was a giant pain to manage to medicate.  Vet recommended attempts at Benadryl caused her to foam pink at the mouth, and left her even more stressed out, no matter how many times we tried.  So it finally registered to me that it might be a diet problem, based on something I read. 

So we changed their diet.  This was before you could get store brand grain free animal food.  This was back when you were considered the lunatic fringe to be feeding your animal a raw diet, or really anything other than the cheapest kibble on the market that didn't seem to cause urinary tract problems.  So it was a rare store that carried a grain free cat food.  But I found someplace that did, and we switched them all to grain free food, because we were free feeding them, and it was too hard to keep Silver separate and feed her the expensive stuff. 

And that was the same timing that I managed to ween myself off of the antihistamines all the time, and thought I had finally adapted to cat allergens.  Or at least these cats.  I still sometimes reacted to random other cats, so I thought maybe I was just used to mine. 

Well, recently I have been reading about how animal bodies react to foods they aren't meant to eat, and the fact that it may well be their antibodies to poisons that are actually what many people are allergic to.  So there is a good chance we've basically created allergenic pets by feeding them things nature never intended them to eat. 

That finally caused a lightbulb to go on for me.  I never
did get used to the dogs before they had to be put down for having cancer.  In all that time, I never adjusted to them.  I just thought at the time that in 6 years with those dogs (we adopted 6ish year old adult dogs), I never adjusted, so I must be more allergic to dogs than cats. 

Well, we've been asking the question of whether my immune system changes might make dogs possible again, for various reasons.  I didn't want to take them on if I was still reactive to them, and my doc said basically the same thing.  So we managed to switch the food for the dogs in question, clean them well, and I just spent a full day with them without a single histamine reaction, even when one accidentally scratched me trying to move about, given his blindness.  Normally that would have turned into a big angry welt. 

But then, normally dogs are fed cheap, grain based garbage as food, as were most cats.  Turns out that I appear to have never genuinely been allergic to dogs and cats.  Turns out that I am allergic to wheat, even when processed through an animal that wasn't meant to eat it.  At least that is the best explanation I can come up with for why I can spend a full day without a single reaction to multiple dogs, even without a desensitization period.  It is the best explanation I can come up with for why I still react to some random cats, but not all of them. 

So if you're out there with a cat or dog allergy, and trying to understand the puzzle as it relates to your immune system madness, it might just be wheat.  And if wheat is causing animals to produce enough antibodies that they can make humans react as strongly as I used to, there is a very good case to be made that none of us should be feeding our animal friends, who don't consider grass a primary part of their diet, any grain product.

I am still a little bit stunned, but not a hive in site, and not a single drippy eye to be found.  I have healed a lot from diet, but I am still getting mast attacks.  They are changing, and less severe in many cases, but I have every reason to believe I should be a swollen mess right now, only I am not.  And the dogs were healthier too.