1965_Bruce

Last week I had a really scary allergic reaction (ok, at least I think that's what it was!) and I can't figure out if it was just bad food, or from a prescription. Let me describe this.

I had my wisdom teeth pulled. The prescription they gave me was Acetaminophen with Codeine 3. I took only 1, 4 times that day. My mouth pain turned out not to be that bad.

The next day, I had a tuna salad with a spinach souffle for dinner. I am not allergic to milk, eggs, or fish - I eat that stuff a lot! The salad contained lettuce and tomato that I bought at the market. about 2 hours later, which was also roughly 24 hours after the last pill, is when this "thing" happened and it lasted only an hour or two.

I began to get bad stomach cramps which got worse. I could hardly stand up. I expected diahrrea but didn't have much. Then I began to feel very hot - hotter than any fever I ever had. Had to take my shirt off and turn on the ceiling fan in the middle of winter! Took my temp, but it registered normal twice. Then, my skin from chest upward turned "sunburn red". I was pretty damn scared. My lips began to feel extremely dry and sort of like they were going to curl up. I began to get itchy - my legs grew huge red blotches. Then, after I tried to lay down for a while, all these symptoms began to recede. An hour maybe? Afterward, I was tired and left with a little diahrrea but I went to sleep.

So.....I didn't go to an ER because all this stuff went away. It never happened again, and I did not take any more of the pills. What could this possibly be??? I called the oral surgeon and he really didn't know, said it could be a "delayed reaction" to codeine. is that possible? is this the sign of a reaction to codeine? I was thinking tainted food....especially the produce and since it happened 2 hours after eating. But I don't know. And I don't know how I'm ever going to find out. It was really bad.