May 15, 2012

  • Freakin’ Allergies!!

    When I was younger, I had really bad allergies and asthma, and I was always going to the hospital to either see a doctor, pick up meds, or get a weekly allergy shot. Nowadays, I kind of take pride in the fact that I don’t get sick often or have to go to hospitals to see doctors or be dependent on medication to function. So now, when I have to go to the hospital, it’s more something kind of major.

    I more or less have allergies all year round, but they get worse during peak allergy season (spring time). Usually, I can just take a claritin or zyrtec and I’ll be fine. But the other night, my allergies got so bad that it triggered my asthma. I hadn’t had a bout of asthma in maybe 16 years. But I could totally tell, with the wheezing and labored breathing. And the timing was weird cause it was the middle of the night and I was asleep. I had to go get checked out because breathing problems are scary, so I scheduled an appointment that same day.

    After getting check out, my doc put me on Singulair, which treats both allergies & asthma. He also recommended Allegra over Clartin and Zyrtec, which is the strongest of the three, but most expensive. I don’t care about the price, cause it hella works better than the others. He also put me on Flonase, which I had been prescribed before never worked for me. It actually made my nose-related allergies worse. Turns out that I was totally using it wrong, so, so wrong. My previous doc was waay off, cause now that I’m using it correctly, it’s working. For me, it’s kind of weird being able to clearly inhale through both nostrils (one or the other is almost always clogged or something). And lastly, just more emergencies, I have a rescue inhaler. I really could’ve used one the previous night, but I didn’t have any that weren’t expired, since I hadn’t had to use one since maybe freshman year in high school.

    So basically I went from taking no meds to being on 2 different allergy meds plus 2 others when needed. I don’t like being dependent on meds. The Singulair is for 90 days, and the Flonase is for at least 2 weeks so that it starts to take effect, then I ween myself off it slowly, so it’s more like a month. Well, at least I can breath.