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Ability Profile: Allergies

 Achoo!

No, I’m not actually sneezing.  It’s morel like this:

ZZzzzZZzZZZzZzzzzzz.

Today and every day for the past two weeks I could be asleep all day long.

Allergies: You’re no friend of mine.

I’ve tried sleeping for longer, but that only makes me want to sleep even longer!  This morning my wife had to get me out of bed with threats and even then I was still struggling just to lift my feet out of bed.

What are my options?

  • Over the counter allergy medications:  They work quite well, but can cause pretty serious headaches in some.  They can also rev you up and make it difficult to sleep (isn’t sleep what I’m craving right now!?).
  • “Natural” remedies.  I’ve tried putting LOCAL bee pollen in smoothies and on salads before.  They say that the LOCAL variety contains some anti-allergy-magic that can help.
  • Allergy shots.  Ouch.
  • Nasal sprays.  I’ve tried these before and feel like they never actually do much.  Many of them also have the risk of addiction and loss of smell.  Yikes!
What have you all done that you’ve found effective and relatively side-effect free?  I want to feel awake like I did just a few weeks ago.  Help save me from allergy sleepiness!

 

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Ability Profiles

Ability Profile: Adult ADHD: A Vacation from my Problems

~By AAA (Ability: Adult ADHD)

Back again, hope everyone is having a good holiday season!

I am having a trying vacation season.  Sustained attention in a crowd is not, shall we say, my forte.  I struggle with it and the holidays often require it.  The whole family is gathered together — people talking over one another, dishes rattling, emotions flaring, aliens sitting at the children’s table.  It can be chaotic at times.
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Ability Profiles, ADHD, Adult ADHD

Ability Profile: Sensory Integration: The Trouble With Ears

Post by A.S.I. (Ability Sensory Integration)

When I walk along the streets of my city, I hear things my friends often don’t (things like the gum chewing and popping in the above video).  I have amazing hearing for noises at gum-chewing frequency.  I can also hear music from other people’s mp3 players and the distant end of their cell phone conversations.  The other morning I was on the train and I could hear a little boy collecting coins on his portable game console.  Everyone else appeared to be having conversations without issue, but I was distracted from mine.

Distracted and frustrated.  It’s just a person chewing gum or playing a video game — no one is intentionally trying to bother me.  So, why does it bother me?

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Ability Profiles, Sensory Integration

Ability Profile: A Call for Bloggers!

Currently, we have 1 blogger writing Ability Profiles.  We would love to have YOU join the team!  If you have a perspective on health and would like to write an anonymous series on your Ability, we would love to have you!

Click here to learn more about Ability Profiles!

Please email  healthinsurance@uua dot org if you are interested!

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Ability Profiles

Ability Profile: My Adult ADHD: Invisibility

by UptownRookie from Flickr

I have 30 blog post ideas floating around in my head.

I recently saw this commercial starring Maroon 5’s Adam Levine on ADHD — someone  other than Ty Pennington from Extreme  Makeover:Home Edition is being vocal about his Adult ADHD!  Adam spoke about having 30 song ideas in his head and struggling to focus to write songs.

So, which of my ideas should I focus on in this post?  I could blog about how my day to day activities are affected by my ADHD.  I could write about how I feel at 8pm when my daily dose of stimulant wears off.  I could write about how I can walk through my life every day with no one I don’t directly inform knowing I have Adult ADHD; my disability is pretty much invisible until I get hyper or nervous and blurt out that I’ve got it.   I think I’ll write about invisibility today, because if I don’t lose momentum, I can always write out my other post ideas another time.
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Ability Profiles, ADHD, Adult ADHD