Giving it all up

A month or so ago I had a nasty allergic reaction to an antibiotic. I'll spare you the details, but I'm still all blotchy and red and itchy -- now with added joint pain and asthma-like symptoms. No fun at all, and really not very pretty. The doc(s) said it might be a few more weeks, or several months, blah blah blah. . .

I'm just not that patient a patient, so I started experimenting -- eliminating things that I am or might be allergic to, or that might exacerbate these particular symptoms -- to see if I feel any better, & then trying them again to see if that makes things worse. So far I haven't found anything that caused anything to improve noticeably, but I've already found quite a few things that make it all worse:

Caffeine, alcohol, spicy food, sunlight, salty food, exercise, hot baths, sitting in one place too long, and aspirin. And overly perfumed colleagues in elevators (but I might be imagining that just because it's so fucking unpleasant). And books, if they have even a little bit of mold on them.

I guess it'll be pretty easy to learn to live without getting into elevators with overly perfumed people. And I don't like salty food all that much, and I only rarely take aspirin. But how in the hell am I going to give up everything else I like? My house is full of books. I eat spicy food for breakfast. And I just got my damn bike out yesterday and it's sunny & gorgeous. And alcohol & caffeine? I don't even want to think about it.

Oh yeah, and orgasms make it worse. Seriously. "Not tonight honey, it makes me itch." How lame is that? I'm very glad I live alone.