Good News (Beta #3) and Bad News

What do you want to read first?  Good news or bad news?  Good news?  Okay - here goes.

My beta went from 328 on 17 dpo to 2740 on 21 dpo.  Hooray!  My progesterone levels remained consistent and high at 56.  Hooray!  And after 3 days of taking an increased dosage of Estrace, my estrogen went up from 80 to 173.  Hooray! (although the RE still wants to see it up near 250).

But now, here's the bad news.  I saw the allergist this afternoon to try and understand why I have been experiencing full body hives for the past 12 days.  And based on everything (including increased eosinophil levels), he is 99% convinced that I'm allergic to the external progesterone that I'm receiving in order to support this pregnancy.  Seriously?!?!?  Awesome.  I'm allergic to the one major drug that I need to take in order to avoid miscarriage.  He said that it doesn't matter if I take the progesterone via shots or by suppository.  It's not the way the progesterone is being delivered, it's the progesterone itself.

So of course I asked him why I didn't have this problem when I was pregnant with Ian or during the last failed FET or, for that matter, during the first 10 days after starting the PIO shots for this FET.  He said that allergies often develop after multiple exposures and so the fact that I didn't have reactions before doesn't mean I'm not having a reaction now.  This makes a lot of sense to me.  I took a full course of the antibiotic Bactrum twice and when taking it a third time, I had an immediate allergic reaction.

He ruled out food allergy and cat allergy because my symptoms are not consistent with those types of allergies.  He said he could do a test to determine if I am allergic to progesterone (after ordering a special kit), but there are quite a few problems with this.  First, I could easily have a false positive to the test because my skin is so hyper-reactive at the moment.  Second, even if the test showed that I did, in fact, have an allergy to progesterone, it's not like I can stop taking the drug!

So given that I have to continue the progesterone shots, he suggested that I take Claritin every day since I told him that it alleviated 80% of the symptoms.  Claritin is a class B drug and there have even been some small clinical studies in pregnant women showing that it is safe when taken during the first trimester.  I HATE that I have to take a drug during my first trimester.  But I don't see any other choice.  I cannot live without taking an anti-histamine.  I didn't sleep last night due to itching.  And I hardly got any work done today because of the hives.  It's really unbelievably awful.

I'm just crossing my fingers and hoping and praying that when we stop the progesterone shots, the hives will go away.  I'm sure my RE won't want to take me off the progesterone, but I sent her an e-mail anyway just to ask if there is any other approach that can be taken.