Not so super

I'm working on the gift-mitts. They look really nice; I hope my sister in law will like them. (I'm up to the thumb gusset on the first one).'

I did a ton of grading yesterday afternoon (all the papers) and also ran out to the local yarn/quilt shop, where I found four different shades of green (three in Berroco's "Vintage," which is just a nice yarn to work with, and one in "Comfort") for the frogs. The woman who sold me the yarn asked me to photograph them when they were done and either bring in or e-mail the photo.

In other news: my eyes started getting puffy again (the ragweed here is truly, amazingly awful right now) and in an excess of caution (I had to Elder today, so I didn't want my eyes to be swollen shut) I took a dose of Benadryl (the largest "child" dose, and the generic liquid children's Benadryl I bought has a truly barf-tastic "bubblegum" flavor) before bed.

Turns out I have a "paradoxical reaction." You hear about people getting sedated from diphenhydramine, so much that parents used to sometimes try to "drug" their kids with it to get them to sleep (a bad idea, anyway) and they also sell it in sleep aids.

Well, it turns out it makes me hyper and wired. I was still sitting up at 10:30 last night, watching re-runs of "The Amazing Dr. Pol" and I realized something wasn't right. I went to bed but tossed and turned for a LONG time.

Actually, this may indicate something interesting but not particularly useful to me about my genetic make-up: I may be a "CYP2D6 ultrarapid metabolizer."  (According to Wikipedia, that tendency is less common in the ethnic background I come from than some others, so maybe not). Not sure what it means other than that apparently people like that metabolize certain medications faster.

I do know I'm super-sensitive to lots of stuff: I have never tried drinking more than a half-glass of wine, because after that I could already slightly feel its effects; the one time I took Sudafed I was wired for three days (and wound up wondering why in the heck people would take recreational drugs in order to feel that way - I was truly miserable). Caffeine also affects me strongly so I try avoiding it. No idea if this has anything to do with the particular cytochrome involved, but I do seem to be sensitive to lots of stuff.

Codeine just makes me throw up, but that may be unrelated to the possibility I have a weird genetic combo: this guy seems to think it works better for him than morphine does Apparently "supermetabolizers" are better off avoiding most opioids. Which is good to know. I hope I never have a situation where something like oxycodone is the best mode of dealing with pain because apparently it can lead to problems, like respiratory depression, in someone who is a supermetabolizer. (I honestly prefer some pain to being drugged up, so I try to avoid pain medication. As I said, ibuprofen seems to work really well for me)

If it's true and I'm a supermetabolizer - well, it's not so super. I hate being so dang sensitive to so much stuff. (Thank goodness low doses of ibuprofen actually work, and work really well for me - I made it through a broken elbow and through wisdom tooth removal and both times I chose not to fill the pain-pill prescription "Unless ibuprofen doesn't work" and I never had to.)


I will say I may have found a very low-chemical way of getting my eyes through this allergy season: last night, one of the Dr. Pol episodes featured a woman who brought in the dog she and her husband "inherited" from his brother, and she noted that the dog was "the last tangible link with the brother." Well, the dog had an inoperable cancer, and Dr. Pol, the woman, and her husband agreed that euthanasia was the kindest option....and they kind of went through the process. And stuff like that *affects* me. And I started crying. And dangit, the tears BURNED. I don't know why, whether it was the irritated tissue around my eyes or what but I immediately stumbled to the bathroom and found the Collyrium eyewash (thank goodness I still had some on hand) and used that. My eyes were a lot better this morning. And I used it after mowing the lawn today (I know - but it needed it and I wore a P-95 mask, long sleeves and pants, and gloves)

I suspect a big part of the future of medicine, if it doesn't become prohibitively expensive to do so, is figuring out individuals' genetic weirdnesses and compensating for them with changing doses or whatever. I've long thought  "what diet is best" is probably a function of one's own genetics, so the whole "low fat!" "No, low carb!" argument probably is far more complex than what the adherents of either would care to accept.