There was a more malicious case of a “good kitty gone bad” in my family. My sister was playing with one of our cats, and things were going well, until the cat apparently decided that it would be a good idea to just flip out and kill people. My sister survived, but got pretty well messed-up from it, and still had the scars decades later. The cat, meanwhile, was found a new job as a barn cat on a relative’s farm where she would never have to deal with humans again.
Never trust a calico.
Heh. At least the worst reactions I’ve gotten are “oh, sweetie, what’s wrong? Why are you crying??” and then I get to point out that I’m not crying, and if can open my eyes wide they can see how red they are.
Why not?
Because epinephrine (Primatene’s main ingredient) is not an allergy medication, but one that helps relieve asthma symptoms by dilating air passages.
But an Epipen is also epinephrine, and is specifically for counteracting allergic reactions.
It’s short-acting, and its main effect (I believe) is to keep you from suffocating due to sudden swelling of the airways, however. Primatene is an inhaled medication that affects only the area it touches. You’d have to spray it into your eyes (which seems like a Very Bad Idea).
The wiki article suggests that epinephrine DOES have a role in mediating an allergic reaction (“Allergy patients undergoing immunotherapy may receive an adrenaline rinse before the allergen extract is administered, thus reducing the immune response to the administered allergen”) but I know it’s not commonly used due to side effects etc. Also, I don’t know HOW it mediates the reaction in that situation - possibly its vasoconstrictor properties would reduce the amount of inflammatory reaction by sheer brute force (blood can’t get there, so swelling can’t happen, but I’m speculating here).
IANAD, but I don’t think this is correct. Inhaling epinephrine is a way of introducing it into the blood stream, much as inhaling oxygen or smoking weed, or ingesting pills gets those chemicals into the blood stream.
Of course my question is not about recommended treatment. It’s more: ‘Oh, my god! This guy’s respiratory system is closing up because of an allergic reaction, and he doesn’t have an Epipen! What about this Primatene Mist? Do we try it? Or is it better to watch him turn blue?’
Which has nothing to do with the assertion that it’ll do nothing for eyes or sneezing and your “why not” question about that, which is the one we’ve attempted to answer.
As I said, I don’t have allergies. So you’re talking to someone who doesn’t have to treat them. My understanding, such as it is, is that itchy eyes caused by allergies are not treated by putting stuff into the eyes. From what I’ve heard, people take pills. The medication gets into the bloodstream and alleviates such symptoms as itchy eyes and a runny nose. Yes, people use eye drops directly in their eyes (I do when my eyes are ‘tired’) or nasal spray directly in their noses. But people are just as likely to swallow a Benedril or Sudafed to achieve the same results. The assertion that the eyes can only be treated by putting medicine directly on them, or sinuses can be treated only by putting medicine directly in them is incorrect. Even though I don’t have direct experience, I know that direct injection of epinephrine alleviates those symptoms as well as opening the breathing passages, and that ingestion of medicines (where emergency care is not needed) achieves the same results.
One of my cats was sleeping on my headboard and fell off. 18 pounds of cat on my face in the middle of the night. He scratched my face, bloodied my nose and blackened my eye. Those looks infurated me. I know that domestic abuse is a problem, but if that’s what they were thinking, why didn’t they speak up?
A couple of years later, one of the people who gave me that look was walking her dog and something happened with the dog taking off and her tripping and landing face first against a rock. I saw her a couple of days later and told her that I knew just how she was feeling.
My wife has bitched for years about a cat allergy. My present cat, Boris, for some reason does not trigger her problems. I do not know if it just went away, or if she really never had one. But she wraps him around her neck and walks around . She pets him when he demands it.
This is what gets me, too. One cat can smoochie all over me with no effect at all, another gives me weeping goo.
A friend of my mother’s keeps passing on beautiful clothes that she finds in second hand shops and I have to repeatedly wash them, because they’ve picked up cat fur as they pass through her house and I feel like I will never stop sneezing, yet I spent several hours covered in cats at the animal shelter and only sneezed a little.
My last comment on the epipen Etc debate. Me and the kid have been tested for allergies, we see our doctor regularly and I don’t qualify for an inhaler, let alone an epipen. The reactions I have are usually more sinus based than breathing based. I will continue to believe my doctor and follow his instructions.
flatlined, sweet karma!
Chronos, Noting “Calico” as a breed to avoid. Although, our first family cat was also psychotic and I loved her anyway.