sticker shock

[cellio]

Good heavens. I had not realized that list price for my allergy medicine is almost $3/day. (My co-pay, fortunately, is 50 cents/day.) C'mon, guys; develop generics! Besides, it would lower my co-pay a bit. :-)

Fortunately, I do not take allergy drugs year-round -- just for about 6 weeks in the summer, starting soon. I have mild allergy symptoms for longer, but I tend to develop immunities to allergy drugs after a while, and I'd rather not do that again.

Comments

[cellio]

It varies based on usage patterns. In the past when I've taken something for pretty much "full allergy season", it's lost its effectiveness after a couple years. (The second year it comes back strong but loses effectiveness more quickly than it did the previous year. It's weird; you'd think the winter would be enough time to recover.)

What I do now is "spot treatments" -- I take the drugs for the worst part of the season and, individually, for smaller periods of time when things are particularly bad. So far this has been working; in fact, my last drug change was due to the FDA, not due to an immunity. (Fie on banning Seldane just because some people are stupid and don't read the neon orange stickers with the bold print...)

I don't know how long an immunity lasts; maybe I could bounce between two allergy drugs (alternating years) and solve it that way? (I don't even remember what I took before Seldane now.) I should ask my doctor. It's been a while since I've discussed this immunity problem with him anyway. (I should, um, maybe get my decennial checkup...)

[kellev.livejournal.com]

What is considered the worst part of the season?

[cellio]

For me, it's usually mid-July through the end of August, sometimes mid-September. I don't know what, botanically speaking, this corresponds with. (Temporally, it corresponds in part to an annual two-week camping trip.)