Benadryl. Lots and lots of Benadryl. I know it knocks most people out, but it’s what works for me, and is affordable.
I take one 25-mg tablet in the morning, and I’m fine for most of the day. I don’t have AC at home, so keeping the windows closed isn’t an option. Once everything is finished blooming, I’m usually okay, but there is a several-week period though the Spring where I have to take it every day just to function.
To back up what Pixel_Dent said, and to add more — my husband has been using a Water Pik in much the same manner for many years for chronic sinus infections, and it works very well for him. It sounds much like the water-bottle solution you have, but we just have a larger nozzle for the Water Pik and add our own salt to the warm water. I use it occasionally.
Another treatment that has worked for him is getting allergy shots at the ENT doctor, who puts the shots on a much faster track. All patients receiving them must have an epipen with them the day they get their shot, but the dosage is much stronger, and seem to work better as a result. He’d had two other allergist treatments in his life with no relief; he was prepared to humor the ENT doc, just to see if it would work. It has, nearly miraculously so. The wonderful side benefit is that without being so clogged all the time, he isn’t getting the sinus infections like he used to and is therefore much less sick, and less often than he used to be!
So anyway, tip to anyone who hasn’t had success with allergy shots at the allergist. Try the ENT … otorhinolaryngologist. (Ha! Not in spell-check.)
My Flonase has a very mild floral scent - I had to go check the bottle to see if it was noticeable, because I hadn’t really noticed it before. It isn’t anything that puts me off the medication.
I use Chlor-Trimeton, or its generic equivalent. It’s a first generation anti-histamine that’s still around. It’s very cheap, and for me it works much, much better than Claritin and doesn’t cause as much drowsiness as Benedryl. (Though it still causes some drowsiness.)
Generic Benadryl at night, and generic Claritin during the day. Benadryl works the bets, but knocks me on my ass (which is a plus at night; I’m an insomniac. If they only made controlled-release Benadryl, I’d be a happy camper. Claritin was an absolute life-changer for me, because it’s the only thing I’ve found that both works and doesn’t knock me out.
I found some Sudafed in the back of the medicine cabinet so I took that last night and managed to sleep. Today I got myself some Reactine (Canadian version of Zyrtec) and some eye drops with antihistamine in them (couldn’t find the one recommended by GilaB, but this should be better than the Zinc one I had). I’ll take Claritin in the morning, Reactine and Nasonex steroid spray at night, and use the eye drops. It’s raining today, so hopefully that will wash some of the pollen out of the air.
It has only been the past two years that I’ve even had an allergic reaction to anything other than smoke (from cigarettes or forest fires) and Claritin worked fine for that. I’d never spent this time of year at the cabin (in the the fir, pine, and cedar pollen producing woods), so I’d never been exposed to high tree pollen counts. I only put two and two together on the weekend when I noticed the film of pollen on the car and the haze in the air and remembered suffering for weeks last spring with what I thought was a lingering cold.
I have a friend who is an allergist. He told me that Claritin is the weakest of the latest generation of antihistamines. He also told me that Zyrtec is good, but the best one on the market right now is Allegra. I had asked him about it because this year, after about 6 years of religious Zyrtec use, the Zyrtec stopped working for me. I’m on Allegra and generic Flonase and it is working wonders. On particularly bad days, I will add a salt water sinus rinse into the mix.
This meshes with what our experience has been with Moon Unit; she was on Claritin and that wasn’t doing much for her symptoms (particularly her eczema); we switched to Zyrtec and that helped some but not enough; she switched to Allegra and that was better.
Allegra is now OTC, of course. Which makes it more expensive if you have health insurance.
I asked the allergist for a scrip for it so we could get it reimbursed from flex spending - instead of doing so, she pushed us to try a new one, Xyzal - which is levocetirizine. That would seem to be the left-handed-only version of Zyrtec (like Nexium is to Prilosec, Xopenex is to albuterol, and Nuvigil is to Provigil).
I don’t know how it compares to Allegra or Zyrtec for efficacy and/or side effects. I do know that nebulized Xopenex has fewer side effects than nebulized albuteral, for me, and I think that’s generally the argument the companies make when touting their new left-handed versions of old generics.
I spent the last two or three years trying to track down the cause of my nasal freakouts to no avail. The problem seemed to develop overnight, out of nowhere, and the sneezing fits were completely random as far as I could tell. Drugs were of minimal help. It was so damned frustrating because I would go on these little goose chases, thinking that I haven’t had a crazy attack in a couple of days since I stopped petting the cat so it must be something on the cat, and just when I think I’ve got the cause pinned down, it’s SneezeFest 2011.
It turned out to be the ceiling fan I was sleeping under. I started doing that a few years ago and never made the connection. My best guess is that over the night it dries out the sinuses and makes them susceptible to all manners of antagonist the next day. I’ve haven’t had a single bout in over a month since I ditched the fan, and I’m confident that the problem has been nipped in the bud.
So long story short, if you sleep with a fan pointed up your nose, stop. 