allergy attack

[cellio]

I'm allergic to Pennsic. (Well, to dust and grass and pollen and weeds and...) So I take Allegra for about three weeks each year to deal with that, but don't take it the rest of the year. (I don't want to develop a resistance to it like I did to all previous allergy drugs save one [1].)

This year I started taking it on Saturday, and then went to Cooper's Lake Sunday for setup. I was fine yesterday, but today I've been congested all day. Mid-day I added Sudafed to the mix; I hope that wasn't bad but I really needed to treat the symptoms. (I take the Allegra once a day and had taken it this morning.) It took about four hours for the Sudafed to produce results.

I think this must have happened in the past, because there's Sudafed in with my use-only-at-Pennsic stuff. Now that I think about it, I remember once calling my doctor from Pennsic to ask if taking Sudafed while taking Allegra would kill me and he said it wouldn't.

I don't know if starting the Allegra earlier would help; how long does it have to be coursing through your veins to lay down a basic barrier against the nasty little allergens? With luck, writing this entry will help me remember next year to start earlier. (I'm sort of assuming that I should be taking allergy drugs (Allegra) and not cold drugs (Sudafed) as a baeline. I don't have a cold; I just have some of the symptoms.)

I should remember to ask my doctor if he can improve on this for me.

[1] Seldane. It worked gloriously, better than Allegra I think, so naturally the FDA eventually decided I couldn't have it.

Comments

[cellio]

(Of course, they'd also like you to take — and pay for — more of it....)

Yup. And at almost 70 cents per pill just from the co-pay, I can see why that might appeal to them. :-) I think the sticker price for a month's worth of Allegra is over $100, but that was a casual comment by the clerk at the pharmacy and not a real price quote.

I had meant to start taking the Allegra Friday but forgot. I think I started Friday last year and it worked then, but last summer was wetter so maybe that helped with the dust. Next year I guess I'll just take it a week ahead and see if that makes a difference. If not, it may be time to ask Canadian friends to bring Seldane to Pennsic.

Seldane: what I understood at the time was that Seldane interacted badly with a medicine commonly used for heart conditions, but for some reason great big warning stickers saying "don't take with [whatever]!!!" were deemed insufficient. I don't recall hearing that Seldane itself posed a risk, though perhaps I just didn't hear all the problems with it.

[sethcohen.livejournal.com]

As a result of the drug-drug interactions Seldane and Hismanal exhibited, there was serious research done into what drugs also cause Q-T prolongation. Neither Seldane or Hismanal alone were risky if taken alone, but people rarely take just one pharmaceutical product...so the drugs came off the market.

[cellio]

people rarely take just one pharmaceutical product

That makes sense broadly, though I find myself wondering how many people only take allergy medicines. (Ok, technically I take more than one pharmaceutical -- but only one that's ingested. I suspect the eyedrops for glaucoma aren't relevant.)

Thanks for the information. I'd forgotten what the specific issue with Seldane was.