That time of the year

[asterroc]

Since Wendesday of last week, I've been sneezing near-continually, and dripping when not sneezing. And this is *with* the Claritin-D running thickly thru my veins.

Comments

[l0stmyrel1g10n.livejournal.com]

the grocery store here doesn't have Claritin-D. i don't have allergies, but Quinlan does, so he's planning to combine plain Claritin and Sudafed. i guess i'm really lucky...i'm sorry about your nose!

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

the grocery store here doesn't have Claritin-D.

To be precise, I often use the generic version of it since it's the same stuff. But double check at the pharmacy counter - since the D part (pseudoephedrine) is a prime ingredient in methamphetamine, a federal law enacted last fall requires that all products containing it be located at the pharmacy counter rather than in the shelves. Same goes for Sudafed, which has the same main ingredient.

Oh, and each person can only buy 10 days worth of 24 hour doses of pseudoephedrine per day. And you'll need to show your driver's license. ... Don't blame the pharmacists, many of them are just as pissed as I am - they're supposed to be doctors, not police.

[l0stmyrel1g10n.livejournal.com]

huh. Sudafed was on the shelves. it didn't occur to me that the Claritin-D might be behind the counter, since the plain Claritin was right there.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I may be mistaken then about Sudafed being pseudoephedrine, or perhaps there are different versions of it. Usually they have little tags/cards with info about each item that's behind the counter so you at least know they have them, but maybe not always.

[demigoth.livejournal.com]

You might already know this, but in a lot of formulations that had pseudoephedrine (dayquil, etc.), they now have two versions; the original one with pseudoephedrine that you need to go to the counter for, and the other containing some other ingredient that doesn't work as well but that is allowed to be sold without pharmacist intervention.

Sometimes the alternate-ingredient packaging will say something like "new safer formula." But what good is safer when it sucks? Hrmph.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

You may want to see if you can get something like Nasonex prescribed. For me, at least, it's rather more effective than Claritin (that is, loratidine) and shares the lack of side effects.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I'll have to look into it. Loratadine is MUCH more effective for me than chlorpheniramine was back when it was the best out there. Is Nasonex (mometasone) something that my normal general practitioner can prescribe me, or would I need to go to an allergist? I've never actually had allergy testing done; I'm curious about it, but it's a pain to find an allergist.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

I had it prescribed by an allergy specialist, but I don't know if your GP could prescribe it or not. I would assume so.