![]() ![]() "They don't know if I will get well, and so we hope and we pray that I will," says Johanna. We're absolutely committed to one another and we're going to wait as long as it takes to see if there is some kind of healing."ĭoctors are trying different treatments, but none so far have helped. "One of the ways I can take care of her now is by not going to see her. I want to keep Johanna safe and me going to see her compromises her safety," says Scott. "There's not an easy way around this problem. The treatment and medication that is usually given to MCAS sufferers does not help Johanna, so at the moment the couple do not know when - if ever - their situation will change. Before this I had reacted to my parents, to many, many other people, but it was horrific when it became Scott." "I was now reacting strongly to my husband. "It was this horrible reality that it wasn't going to work," says Johanna. "And then at one point he went to get his haircut and came back in the room and within two minutes I had started my anaphylactic symptoms and he had to leave."Ī week later Scott tried to see his wife again, but the same thing happened, and they realised their lives would have to change dramatically. My normal daily symptoms would just be aggravated," says Johanna. ![]() "We had noticed that when Scott would come in I would start feeling worse and worse. But it was only last year that the couple realised they had become unable to physically share their life together. "There were times three and four years ago, before we got the diagnosis, that if I was extra close to my wife, specifically if my face was close to Johanna's face, she would cough," says Scott. Even then she struggled with unusual rashes, irritable bowel syndrome and migraines, but these ailments became much worse after the couple married. She worked as a teacher and the couple used to love hiking together. The symptoms and severity of the disease can vary from patient to patient, but it makes Johanna allergic to virtually everything and can trigger life-threatening anaphylactic shock.īefore she married her husband Scott in 2013 Johanna did not expect her condition to become so severe. She has a severe form of Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) in which the cells that are meant to protect her from outside threats mutate and start attacking her body instead. Johanna lives in an attic room all by herself with sealed windows and doors, and air filters to purify the air. We can't be in the room together, because I'm allergic to him, but he will be three floors below me in a room on his laptop and I will be on mine and we'll watch the show at the same time and then text about it as we're watching it," says Johanna. "Scott and I will try to watch a show together. Johanna and Scott Watkins's date nights are very different from other couples. She suffers from Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, a rare disorder of the immune system, which means she is allergic to almost everything, including her husband's scent. Twenty-nine-year-old Johanna Watkins from Minnesota cannot kiss her husband Scott, or even spend time in the same room as him.
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