Immunity blues

As anyone who's studied biochemistry can tell you, the immune system truly is one of the wonders of the human body. I can't help feeling though that it could do with a bit of redesigning.

It seems to spend a significant amount of its time attacking the wrong things.

The list of auto-immune ailments really is quite long. Countless individuals suffer arthritis because their joints are inflamed for no obvious reason. Almost all the women in my mother's family have a condition where they have antibodies to their own thyroid glands. My sister can no longer indulge her love of avocado, having somehow become sensitised to it. And I, along with a large part of the local population, am battling hayfever.

It nearly drove me crazy this morning. More than an hour after I took a tablet, I could hardly think because all my effort was going into breathing and not letting my nose run.

I resent having to take a drug to try and stop my body producing histamines. Can't it figure out for itself that rye grass is a not a threat to my health?

It could be worse though. I can't imagine how the immune system can get things wrong to the extent that a mere whiff of a peanut could kill, but there are people in that situation.