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

[sekhmets-song.livejournal.com]

Funny how different people react differently to the same drug: Seldane didn't do crap for me. I suspect I'd have the same issue with Allegra. I'm a Clariton girl (though I only take it one or two days a week in the summer. The winter is when I need it daily), now.
I remember when they pulled Seldane from the market. I still had half a bottle left (and something like 4 months left on the prescription) and had friends begging for my leftovers when theirs ran out.

[cellio]

There was a period of time when you couldn't get Seldane but they hadn't yet rolled out Allegra. Or there was some complication with Allegra. I don't exactly remember. It didn't affect me because I just kept taking Seldane and, since I don't take it all the time, I had enough. But for people with allergies that go all season, I can see why your leftovers were in demand.

The only reason I take a prescription allergy medicine is that every single OTC drug has a warning about a condition I have (or did the last time we surveyed them), so my doctor told me to take this instead. I don't know what makes Allegra and Seldane magically different from the OTC drugs on this front, but oh well. If I needed more than one fill-up of the prescription per year I'd look harder at it, but for $20/year I'll just do what my doctor says without complaint. (Actually, if the shelf-life is long enough I can get that down a bit by buying a three-month supply for $40. That would last me 3-4 years.)