Ways to get rid of hay fever

[Captain Grace OMalley]

Does anyone have any tricks to getrid of hay fever? I have gotten it every year since I was a little kid, and I haven't found a single medicine to help. Two years ago I was even on prescription allergy meds, extra strenth cleratin, and double doses of benedyl, but all that conbined didn't even reduce the symptoms. I'm in need of some help.  

[bandaidd]

It's certainly not an easy thing to do. Allergists recommend minimizing the pollen that gets into your eyes and nose. This seems like a DUH, but when you think of it, there are some basics that can help.
Avoid buildings that pump outdoor air in without filtering... and car aircon/fans... rolling down the windows. Avoid being outside on windy days. Filter the air that gets into your living quarters if possible.
Wear a hat with a bill or brim. Wear your hair up. Wear glasses/sunglasses. Shower as soon as you get inside to remove all of the pollen that fell on your head. Rinse your face frequently.
You might consider wearing a face mask while outdoors. You can pick them up free at hospitals one at a time in waiting rooms or entrances. They don't want people with coughs unmasked so they tend to give them out. Also, get or make some saline water and learn how to rinse your nose out. It sounds horrid, but it sure does reduce your symptoms. You can find online special nose pots and syringes for this but I just snort it out of my palm with my head hanging over the sink.
To make it, I use a quart of distilled or good drinking water and add 1/4 teaspoon of table salt. You can use tap water if it's good enough to drink. Shake until the salt is dissolved. Don't store more than a month.
A prescription med I didn't notice you mention is fluticasone, an inexpensive nasal steroid spray that is often prescribed for seasonal allergies such as yours that don't respond well to antihistamine pills. It might be worth asking for. Antihistimine eye drops can also help. Over the counter are decent. Prescription are around the tune of $100 USD per bottle.
If your symptoms are horrendous from year to year, you might consider allergy testing with the thought in mind to relandscape where you live or move to a place where they don't grow the plants you are allergic to. This is drastic, but it can change your life for the better. I have seen it. Best wishes. emotion_bandaid  

[Captain Grace OMalley]

Thanks. I will probably avoid taking more medications for it, since I have taken and tried so many. The side-effects are also getting to be a little annoying. A saline rinse does sound pretty good, though someone uncomfortable, it seems like a good solution for while I am at work (I am a massage therapist, so severe allergies aren't good when I have to have direct contact with people). The mask is also probably a good idea considering I live in Michigan, and it is a very windy spring this year.  

[bandaidd]

You're welcome. The hat is just for while you are outside, so the pollen doesn't fall in your hair [bangs, especially] and then get in your eyes later, so maybe on your way to work something that won't wreck your "do". emotion_bandaid  

[Captain Grace OMalley]

My hair does a pretty good job of wrecking itself lol I don't bother with anything more complicated than a ponytail anymore. The saline water worked pretty well, so I was actually able to sleep last night (aside from my ferrets biting my toes xd ). Plus it reduced a lot of the coughing that I was doing.

The pollen is going to be hard to avoid though because I'm allergic to pretty much everything except grass, but keeping the heat turned up is actually helping a bit with the congestion as well.  

[Sakura_Moonlight2421]

I have allergies too but not as severe to get hay fever every year like you. Have you tried taking Zyrtec D? Its a decongestant I use when my allergies act up. It used to be prescription only but it was changed to over the counter a long time ago. My allergy specialist said that Zyrtec's strength is like taking 4 cleratin. (Or so he says. I haven't been prescribed cleratin before so I won't be able to compare the two. emotion_sweatdrop )  

[Captain Grace OMalley]

Sakura_Moonlight2421

I have allergies too but not as severe to get hay fever every year like you. Have you tried taking Zyrtec D? Its a decongestant I use when my allergies act up. It used to be prescription only but it was changed to over the counter a long time ago. My allergy specialist said that Zyrtec's strength is like taking 4 cleratin. (Or so he says. I haven't been prescribed cleratin before so I won't be able to compare the two. emotion_sweatdrop )

Ya, a friend had me try it before, gave me that and something else that a doc. prescribed for her allergies, but that didn't have any effect either. Basically I've tried every over the counter product, stuff I've had prescribed, and risked taking allergy meds that were prescribed to friends and no effect at all.

But I also have a large resistance to cold/flu medications and pain killers.  

[bandaidd]

Zyrtec-D is actually an antihistamine [cetirizine] formerly known as Zyrtec with a Decongestant [pseudoephedrine] added.

It's in a long-release formula to last 24h so it's very convenient to take and yes, the antihistamine is more powerful than claritin. Adding the decongestant also helps with nasal stuffiness, but can cause a buzz or sleeplessness by itself in about maybe 25% of people, so I recommend taking the antihistamines and decongestants separately. Oral decongestant during the day, nasal decongestant during the night if needed, with the warning that more than 3 nights in a row can cause dependence and worse stuffiness when you quit! Which is why I recommend the nasal wash to desperate people. It sounds horrible, so only desperate people are likely to try it, but dang it works better than any drug and no side effects... although I heard someone in the Guild here tried to teach nasal lavage to baby bunnies once and some of them died. I hope that's not true. I also heard that person was caught by the sheriff and punished severely after being voted guilty by a jury of peers.

Benadryl [diphenhydramine] is the most powerful antihistamine of all, but it causes drowsiness in lots of people. If you're one of those people, it's a great bedtime antihistamine. Yes, you can take benadryl and zyrtec at the same time. They work on different pathways. We give both when people have major life threatening allergic reactions.

I could talk all day about allergies! Aren't they fascinating?  

[Captain Grace OMalley]

Umm, ya, fascinating. That's a word I use to describe them all the time.

Actually a full dose of benadryl by itself gets me stoned. One time I was staring at a wall for ten minutes completely amused by how shiny it was. Another time it felt like my arm was floating across the room, but when I looked down and saw that it was still attached, I couldn't understand why it was still there. My first time taking it I was obsessing about a pencil named Phil while I was chewing on a pillow (this was from a double dose, recommended by a doctor before we found out about this side-effect) My friends caught this camera and I had to delete the video later.

Now I don't take benadryl anymore unless the allergies get so bad I want to stop caring about the symptoms for awhile.  

[Sakura_Moonlight2421]

sweatdrop wow...  

[Captain Grace OMalley]

Ya, the docs didn't really know how I could react to it that way, but then again they don't know why I wont react to their strong oral painkillers either, so they always have to inject me.  

[Captain Grace OMalley]

Ya, I've been taking about 2 or 3 showers a day lately to help (well also because anemic and always cold so hot water feels good). I'd say that and the saline water has helped better than anything else I've tried so far.  

[ThisEmptySoul]

Oh wow... seeing the benadryl reaction and combining that with the MJ reaction, I definitely see that you've got some kind of unique drug response system going on there.

Being underweight and/or anemic will definitely make one react more severely to all drugs and they have to take smaller doses because of that. And considering you've also got severe allergies {and having somewhat of an understanding of exactly what allergies are}, sounds to me like your body might be interpreting certain drugs/chemicals to be substances other than what they really are.

To my understanding, the way allergies work is that your immune system goes haywire because it's constantly attacking something that it interprets to be a disease, even if it's not actually a disease. If I'm wrong, I'm sure bandaidd is going to correct me since she knows a lot more about this stuff than I do rofl And probably would make me do more push-ups for being wrong crying  

[Captain Grace OMalley]

ThisEmptySoul

Oh wow... seeing the benadryl reaction and combining that with the MJ reaction, I definitely see that you've got some kind of unique drug response system going on there.

Being underweight and/or anemic will definitely make one react more severely to all drugs and they have to take smaller doses because of that. And considering you've also got severe allergies {and having somewhat of an understanding of exactly what allergies are}, sounds to me like your body might be interpreting certain drugs/chemicals to be substances other than what they really are.

To my understanding, the way allergies work is that your immune system goes haywire because it's constantly attacking something that it interprets to be a disease, even if it's not actually a disease. If I'm wrong, I'm sure bandaidd is going to correct me since she knows a lot more about this stuff than I do rofl And probably would make me do more push-ups for being wrong crying

Ya, that's pretty much it. Your body releases histamines as an immune response to the thing that is misinterprets. Anti-histamines are supposed to supposed to suppress that response to either reduce or stop the symptoms.

It wouldn't be surprising if my body is misinterpreting that stuff. I have occasional strange food intollerances as well to things that I'm normally fine eating. *shrugs* Maybe I'm just weird.

And don't worry, you wont need to go through more push-up in this thread lol